Skate Freak

After moving to a new town with his unemployed father, Quinn struggles to fit in both at the skate park and in school and finds himself failing miserably until another skateboarder, Jasmine, starts to take an interest in him.

It is the year 2002. As Delilah Maconwood struggles with her mother's untimely death, old memories surface and Delilah's marriage starts to crumble. Outside support offers a glimmer of hope until Delilah experiences a traumatic event that escalates her mental unraveling and eventually leads to bloodshed. ROLLER SKATE SKINNY is written from the perspective of an unreliable (mentally ill) narrator in the midst of a life crisis. The novel is comparable to My Sister the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite or The Lost by Sarah Beth Durst. It is also comparable to We Need to Talk about Kevin by Lionel Shriver. Award winning editor M. T. Hussey stated that Roller Skate Skinny contains "great visual moments and Delilah's trials and tribulations are vividly told. There are some fascinating decisions and a sense of inevitability that draws the reader in."

This book explores the ways in which religion is observed, performed, and organised in skateboard culture. Drawing on scholarship from the sociology of religion and the cultural politics of lifestyle sports, this work combines ethnographic research with media analysis to argue that the rituals of skateboarding provide participants with a rich cultural canvas for emotional and spiritual engagement. Paul O’Connor contends that religious identification in skateboarding is set to increase as participants pursue ways to both control and engage meaningfully with an activity that has become an increasingly mainstream and institutionalised sport. Religion is explored through the themes of myth, celebrity, iconography, pilgrimage, evangelism, cults, and self-help.

Eleven-year-old Sibby Henry liked her old life. Now she's living in a new town with her nan and pops, and is mad at her dad for messing everything up. On her first day of school, she sees a dope skateboard park. But she can’t use it because her precious board is gone forever. To make things worse, Freddie, a super skater and a super jerk, dominates the park. Sibby tries to stay cool, but when Freddie gets in the face of Sibby’s friend Charlie Parker Drysdale, things get too hot for chill. Never one to back down, Sibby accepts when Freddie challenges her to a skateboarding competition. She won’t let anything stop her from proving herself.

"To be a skateboarder today is a much different experience than it was for much of the 1990s. The photographs, quotes, and anecdotal text in ''93 til' captures a time in skateboarding when making a livable income as a professional skater was a luxury and public understanding of skateboarding was at an all-time low. It was a time when skateboarding was searching for an identity, a time before Instagram and big corporate influences. Street skating was coming of age, testing its limitations and aligning itself with a new and innovate style of hip-hop culture that was emerging. Looking back, many skaters today feel as though the '90s were the golden years of skateboarding. ''93 til' is a captivating portal into a decade and a culture that is remembered with warmth and nostalgia. Much of the photography that Pete has unearthed for '93 til was buried in boxes for close to two decades and hasn't never been seen or published before. The 250-page book also contains several timeless images from his years shooting for SLAP and Transworld Skateboarding Magazine that will be familiar to the initiated. In addition to his stunning action shots are plenty of portraits and unguarded, candid moments that span from the late '80s up through 2004. The book reveals a raw, unapologetic perspective of a world that no longer exists."--Provided by publisher.

A teacher's resource for Orca Currents, high-interest low-vocab novels for middle school readers.

For many Americans who grew up in a small town, childhood and adolescence revolved around the skatepark. As time passes, however, these people drift away from skateboarding and the spaces where they learned to do it. Part memoir, part travelogue, part essay, Small Town Skateparks is the story of an adventure to discover the role skateparks play in such lives and the role they played in the author's own. Clint Carrick grew up at the skatepark. Every day of the summer, he and his friends would loaf at the dilapidated park with warped plywood ramps strewn with rusty nails. They were the outsiders of the town, or at least thought of themselves that way. They wore jeans and ripped skate shoes and felt free in their special hang out, the skatepark, where they had their own language, their own heroes, and their own views of the world. In this setting they matured from children awestruck of high school kids to bored young men desperate to get out. Clint, now an adult, rekindles these forgotten memories as he drives across the country visiting unremarkable skateparks in America's small towns. Why is he drawn to these skateparks? What is their charm? How does the skatepark function as an institution, and what is the indelible mark it leaves on those who grow in its womb? As he makes his way further west, Clint relearns how to skate. He chats with locals, crashes, bleeds, and hears a lot of stories that sound like his own. The rust begins to wear off, but questions remain. Can someone who left skating behind rediscover the activity that defined his youth? Can someone who abandoned skateboarding make the skatepark once again his home?

In this atmospheric story, a group of kids play hockey on a frozen lake by moonlight. At once nostalgic and timely, this is a gorgeous book that will speak to readers young and old. The beaver flood has finally frozen--perfect ice, without a bump or a ripple. For the kids in town, it's Christmas in November. They wait, impatiently, for the right moment. Finally, it arrives: the full moon. They huff and puff through logging trails, farms, back roads and tamarack swamps, the powdery snow soaking pant legs and boots, till they see it--their perfect ice, waiting. And the game is on. When the moon Comes is steeped in tradition and nostalgia: for hockey, for childhood, for a simpler time. The beauty of the text is matched by the brilliant, rich illustrations that wonderfully capture the magic of a moonlit night in winter.