Shred Girls: Lindsay's Joyride - Hardcover

Hurford, Molly

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1635652774 ISBN 13: 9781635652772

Publisher: Rodale Kids, 2019

Synopsis

An empowering new series from the cyclist who runs Shred-Girls.com is guaranteed to give readers an adrenaline rush--and the confidence girls gain from participating in sports!

It's time to ride and save the day!

Lindsay can't wait to spend her summer break reading comics and watching superhero movies--until she finds out she'll be moving in with her weird older cousin Phoebe instead. And Phoebe has big plans for Lindsay: a BMX class at her bike park with cool-girl Jen and perfectionist Ali.

Lindsay's summer of learning awesome BMX tricks with new friends and a new bike turns out to be more epic than any comic book--and it's all leading up to a jumping competition.

But some of the biker boys don't think girls should be allowed to compete in BMX. Now it's up to Lindsay, Jen, and Ali to win the competition and prove that anyone can be great at BMX.

About this title

About the Author:

Molly Hurford is an author, a coach, and a lover of all things outdoors. She's a cycler and a runner, as well as a sports and nutrition writer. She runs the online publication The Outdoor Edit and, with her partner, hosts a podcast called The Consummate Athlete. Her mission is "to get girls and women to embrace wellness and adventure!" Lindsay's Joyride is her middle-grade debut.

theoutdooredit.com
shred-girls.com
Instagram: @mollyjhurford
Twitter: @mollyjhurford

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

For as long as I can remember, I’ve lived in a world that’s full of superheroes.
At least that’s what my parents say when they complain about the comic books all over the house, or all the posters in my room, or the times that I’m watching cartoons instead of doing homework. I try to explain that I’m not “wasting time” or “killing brain cells,” as they call it.
I’m researching. And this summer I’m logging all my research here, in my guide to being a superhero.
I figure I’m super qualified to be super (ha-ha, get it?), since I have my own strict training regimen. Not every wannabe superhero bothers with that. See, every day I come home from school and do the same thing:
3:30 p.m.–4:00 p.m.: Research via watching cartoons while eating a (healthy) snack.
4:00 p.m.–4:15 p.m.: Intelligence gathering, i.e., skimming Mom’s morning newspaper for any recent heists.
4:15 p.m.–4:45 p.m.: Daily report. I take the info I just got from the newspaper plus the notes that I thought of during my earlier research and put them into this journal so I can reference them later.
4:45 p.m.–5:00 p.m.: Stretching using the yoga mat Mom has set up in the living room. Even in the Justice League, I know they do warm-ups before training, which leads to . . .
5:00 p.m.–6:00 p.m.: Intensive physical training. Can be done outside on the tire-and-ladder obstacle course my dad helped me build, or in my basement crime-fighting training center . . . which is really just a crime-in-progress scene with a bunch of my villainous teddy bears and old dolls set up as targets. But Mom promised this year I could get a punching bag for my birthday, so the countdown is on.
6:00 p.m.: Dinnertime and back to my alter ego, plain old Lindsay.
With all this training, how could I not be destined to be a superhero?
Also, I’m pretty sure my cousin Phoebe is a supervillain, so I have a built-in archnemesis.
Okay, I admit, it’s a little unlikely that she’s an actual supervillain. But I need to start somewhere and I like a good project. From my research, an epic battle is pretty key in the superhero game. I mean, anyone can do good, but to take it to the next level, it seems like superheroes always need to have a “big bad” to fight. And it’s so easy to want to fight with supervillain Phoebe. She wears all black, dyes her dark hair crazy colors, pierced her entire ear when she was eighteen—and then got a bunch of tattoos. She’s been adding to her tattoo collection since then, and now that she’s twenty-three, she’s living on her own in an apartment a few miles from her parents’ house and my house, and her style has only gotten wilder over the years.
I have to confess, I secretly think she looks kind of cool (in a villainous way), but her attitude really isn’t very cool at all. . . . Usually she just ignores me, and I’ve heard her yelling at her mom in the kitchen while we’re over there for dinner. The stereo in her old room at her parents’ house—even with the door slammed shut— actually seemed to pulse the walls and floors, and when she brought friends by, they looked like they could have been rejected by the Legion of Doom for being too obvious.
Like today, I walked down to the kitchen to get a snack—a superhero-in-training needs to keep her strength up—and I heard my mom on video chat with my aunt, and Tía Maria was complaining for the millionth time about something Phoebe was up to now that she’s moved into her own apartment. I think she got into trouble at school or work or something, maybe. . . . Whatever it was, Tía Maria was shrieking that Phoebe was going to get hurt if she kept up what she’d been doing, no amount of training could protect her, and why couldn’t she be more like Tía was when she was her age? (Between you and me, I’ve seen the photo albums, and the way Tía Maria dressed when she was younger wasn’t exactly a style I’d want either. Shoulder pads and enormous hair, yikes.)
But anyway, Phoebe definitely stands out. She spends family parties mostly ignoring me and listening to music with her headphones on. Okay, that may not be a major indicator that she’s a supervillain, but I need to start somewhere when it comes to finding an archnemesis.
(Hey, I didn’t make the rules. I just read about them.)
Superhero Tip: All good superheroes have an archnemesis. You can still be an equal-opportunity crime fighter and stop all crimes, but your main focus always needs to be thwarting your archnemesis. Otherwise, there’s no way your comic book will become a wellknown series. Obviously.
Before you roll your eyes, just hear me out. You’re probably my age, and you might be someone who would be my best friend in school. (Maybe. Actually, I’m pretty shy in real life.) Or you might ignore me and laugh at me with your friends at the lunch table. But you know what? I bet you’ve also thought about how cool it would be if life were a little more like your Saturday-morning cartoons.
(And if you don’t think being able to jump into other dimensions or fly would be cool, maybe we wouldn’t be best friends after all.)
I know it sounds crazy, but I really believe that I could be a superhero. The world may not be under imminent threat of alien invasion yet, but if it happens, wouldn’t it be great if there was someone around prepared to deal with it?

About this edition

• Publisher: Rodale Kids
• Publication date: 2019
• ISBN 10: 1635652774
• ISBN 13: 9781635652772
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 256
• Illustrator: Lemay Violet