Spinning by Tillie Walden

Spinning

Tillie Walden

First Second · Paperback · September 12, 2017

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.

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Who it’s for
A candid coming-of-age memoir about skating, first love, and outgrowing a once-defining world.
Themes
Coming of age, Queer identity and first love, Outgrowing a longtime passion
Pacing
Reflective

About this book

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.

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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

When Passion Shifts

A candid coming-of-age memoir about skating, first love, and outgrowing a once-defining world.

Come here for

  • The intensity of years spent chasing figure-skating success
  • A young artist finding her own voice as life changes

Expect

  • An intimate account of ambition, identity, and letting go
  • A graphic memoir grounded in the daily demands of skating

Where it sits

Graphic Biography77%
Winter Sports61%
LGBTQ+ Biographies47%

Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.

Publisher categories

  • LGBTQ+ Biographies
  • Graphic Biography
  • Winter Sports
Authors
Tillie Walden
Publisher
First Second
Published
September 12, 2017
Format
Paperback
Theme
Coming of age · Queer identity and first love · Outgrowing a longtime passion
Reading lane
LGBTQ+ Biographies