SHRED OR DEAD

Absurd humor and over-the-top skateboarding go together like chips and soda.

Claris Hills is “the absolute capital of skate culture,” a place where survival means joining a good crew, minding other crews’ territory, and raising one’s skating level. The characters’ skating levels are displayed like real-life video game stats. Sam, age 10, is determined to increase her skating level (which is a paltry 15) in order to defeat Radical Tim (who’s at an impressive level 100). His Too Cool Crew is expanding their territory and excluding everyone else. But she runs afoul of The Law (age 47, level 0), an authoritarian grocery store guard who has a hang-up about skateboarders. Sam and friends embark on a different harrowing adventure with each chapter, including a sympathy-building sequence from The Law’s point of view. Gambles enjoys building up the dramatic and supernatural threats, only to pop any tension with humorous absurdity: Look no further than the deliriously dystopian third act, which features a jailhouse fingerboard duel as well as a skateboarding trick so intense it rips a space-time hole that defies physics. The two most dependable elements of this chaotic tale are the word garf (a derogatory slang term) and Sam’s explosive skateboarding powers, illustrated in blue. Sam and The Law read white; the cast members overall are diverse in skin tone.

Skateboarding demands—and has found—a tale that shreds off the page and out the back of readers’ skulls.