Spinning

Tillie Walden's Eisner Award winning graphic memoir Spinning captures what it's like to come of age, come out, and come to terms with leaving behind everything you used to know.

It was the same every morning. Wake up, grab the ice skates, and head to the rink while the world was still dark.

Weekends were spent in glitter and tights at competitions. Perform. Smile. And do it again.

She was good. She won. And she hated it.

For ten years, figure skating was Tillie Walden's life. She woke before dawn for morning lessons, went straight to group practice after school, and spent weekends competing at ice rinks across the state. Skating was a central piece of her identity, her safe haven from the stress of school, bullies, and family. But as she switched schools, got into art, and fell in love with her first girlfriend, she began to question how the close-minded world of figure skating fit in with the rest of her life, and whether all the work was worth it given the reality: that she, and her friends on the team, were nowhere close to Olympic hopefuls. The more Tillie thought about it, the more Tillie realized she'd outgrown her passion--and she finally needed to find her own voice.

This title has Common Core connections.

A New York City Public Library Notable Best Book for Teens
A Chicago Public Library Best Book of 2017
A 2018 YALSA Great Graphic Novel
A 2017 Booklist Youth Editors' Choice

Author: Tillie Walden
Publisher: First Second
Published: 09/12/2017
Pages: 400
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.85lbs
Size: 8.40h x 6.10w x 1.30d
ISBN: 9781626729407
Audience: Young Adult

Accelerated Reader:
Reading Level: 3.1
Point Value: 1
Interest Level: Upper Grade
Quiz #/Name: 191881 / Spinning


Review Citation(s):
Booklist 07/01/2017 pg. 46
Publishers Weekly 07/17/2017
Kirkus Reviews 08/01/2017 pg. 183
Voice of Youth Advocates 08/01/2017 - Recommended - Better Than Most
Bulletin of Ctr for Child Bks 10/01/2017
Horn Book Magazine 11/01/2017 pg. 127
Hornbook Guide to Children 01/01/2018 - Superior,Well Above Average

About the Author
Tillie Walden is a cartoonist and illustrator from Austin, Texas. Born in 1996, she is a recent graduate from the Center for Cartoon Studies, a comics school in Vermont. Over the course of her time at CCS she published three books with the London based Avery Hill Publishing. She has already received an Eisner Award nomination and two Ignatz Awards for her early works. When she is not drawing comics, Tillie can be found walking and listening to audiobooks or asleep with a cat. She also enjoys studying architecture and tries to incorporate that passion into her comics. Spinning is her first long form autobiographical work.