Spinning

by Tillie Walden

Overview

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

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781626729407
Publisher:	First Second
Publication date:	09/12/2017
Pages:	400
Sales rank:	95,657
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.40(h) x 1.30(d)
Age Range:	14 - 17 Years

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.

Editorial Reviews

★ 07/17/2017
In an elegant, contemplative, and somber graphic memoir, Walden (The End of Summer) immerses readers in an adolescence dominated by competitive figure skating. The story stretches over several years, during which time Walden vacillates between embracing the routine of early morning practices and the rush of competition, and a near-constant feeling of otherness, due in large part to her attraction to girls, which she hides from her family and peers. “It wasn’t the thrill or freedom I felt that I remember,” she notes after making a romantic connection with a friend. “It was the fear.” Chapters open with illustrations of spins and jumps, the movements delicately mapped, paired with commentary that, at times, gives insight into Walden’s personal life; of the frustrating axel, she writes, “As I would turn to go into it I would wish and hope with everything I had that this time it would work.” A palette of deep purple, splashed with yellow, underscores the loneliness that permeates Walden’s story, and her careful attention to facial expressions and body language makes readers intimately aware of what she is feeling. A haunting and resonant coming-of-age story. Ages 14–up. Agent: Seth Fishman, Gernert Company. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

[A] stark, gripping graphic novel memoir.” —Washington Post, “These books can help build strong girls—and boys—for today's world”

“Tillie Walden's Spinning is an engrossing, gorgeously quiet look back at the 12 years she devoted to figure and synchronized skating.” —New York Times


“Intimate and compelling. A quiet powerhouse of a memoir.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“An elegant, contemplative, and somber graphic memoir . . . A haunting and resonant coming-of-age story.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Quiet and lyrical . . . and deeply satisfying. A stirring, gorgeously illustrated story of finding the strength to follow one’s own path.” —Booklist, starred review

“An honest and intimate coming-of-age story that will be appreciated by tweens and young teens, especially those in competitive sports.” —School Library Journal

“An accessible introduction to the graphic novel form. Older readers will want to graduate from this to Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home.” —The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

“This beautiful story about sorrow, growth, and triumph will resonate in every reader’s heart.” —Laurie Halse Anderson, New York Times–bestselling author and two-time National Book Award finalist

“This is a beautifully told story that will resonate with anyone who played an instrument, or did gymnastics, or got signed up for skating: these things weren't always what we wanted to do or cared about, but they gave us some focus when everything else was mystery and chaos.” —Lucy Knisley, New York Times bestselling author of Relish: My Life in the Kitchen

“Spinning is spare yet intimate, painfully honest, and oh-so-real.” —Malinda Lo, three-time Lambda Literary Award finalist author of Ash and Adaptation

“Gorgeous and honest.” —Faith Erin Hicks, award-winning author of The Nameless City

From the Publisher

★ 2017-07-17
Graphic novelist Walden recounts her years coming-of-age as a competitive ice skater.Tillie Walden knew she was gay since she was 5, which was also when she began ice skating. This memoir recounts the years from when she's 11 to when she reaches her late teens, as her life marches on through fledgling romances, moving halfway across the country, bullying, and various traumas with skating as her only constant. Her story is largely insular, with her family only visible in the periphery, even with regard to her skating. Walden's recollections tend to meander at times, with an almost stream-of-consciousness feel about them; her taciturn introspection mixed with adolescent ennui creates a subdued, yet graceful tone. For a young author (Walden is in her early 20s), she is remarkably adept at identifying the seminal moments of her life and evincing their impacts on her trajectory. Her two-toned art is lovely and spare, utilizing the occasional splash of an accenting color to heighten visual interest. She draws herself as a blonde, bespectacled, white girl, a depiction that brings Harriet Welsch to mind. Walden deems herself "a creator who is happy making a book without all the answers," and while she may not solve any of life's great conundrums, her offering is intimate and compelling. A quiet powerhouse of a memoir. (Graphic memoir. 13-adult)

Kirkus Reviews

A nearly-400-page graphic memoir by a 21-year-old seems like a dicey proposition—not least because most cartoonists take years or decades to develop their voice—but Tillie Walden's Spinning is an engrossing, gorgeously quiet look back at the 12 years she devoted to figure and synchronized skating…Walden evokes emotional states with elegantly composed panels: minimal, tentative lines, more delicate than a blade's, surrounded by bold swatches of negative space.

The New York Times Book Review - Douglas Wolk

09/01/2017
Gr 6 Up—A graphic memoir about competitive ice skating, growing up, and coming out. Walden spent much of her youth on the ice, at practices and competitions, and in locker rooms among friends, frenemies, and competitors. In this deeply personal reflection, the author/illustrator is unflinching in her examination of what drove her passion for the sport, the embarrassments and experiences that marked pivotal moments in her development, and how she eventually came out to family and friends as a young teen. The art is economical, with a simple indigo and white palette with very occasional splashes of yellow, lending the book an appropriately cold tone; readers will shiver with empathy as Walden steps onto the rink in the early morning before the sun rises. While her drive and commitment to being the best athlete is evident (at one point, she describes sleeping in her practice clothes on top of her blankets, not allowing herself to get warm so that the early morning transition would be easier), the details about some of her relationships are held at arm's length and only hinted at, most notably the strained relationship with her mother. A scene in which a male tutor sexually harasses Walden and attempts a physical assault is affecting and may spark deeper discussion. Her first romantic relationship is both tender and heartbreaking. VERDICT An honest and intimate coming-of-age story that will be appreciated by tweens and young teens, especially those in competitive sports.—Kiera Parrott, School Library Journal

School Library Journal