The tone for Jamie Sumner’s book Roll with It is set in the first line, “It’s kind of hard to watch The Great British Bake Off over plates of Stouffer’s lasagna.” The protagonist of the book is Lily, AKA Ellie because when she was little and tried to say her name, it came out as Ellie.
The story begins with a focus on Ellie’s obsession with cooking. She watches cooking shows and practices techniques, looking forward to the upcoming annual pie contest at her grandparents’ Bethlehem Methodist Church when she has every intention of winning. Scattered throughout the book, as a bit of humorous relief, are her letters to the various chefs she sees on TV.
While Ellie has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair, that is a secondary focus of the book. In the conflict between wanting to be seen as something more than disabled as she moves to a new school, Ellie also wishes for people to be aware and give understated help when needed. While her abilities and the real world of middle school form the crux of the story, the truth of her disease throws a realistic difficulty into her life from time to time.
Ellie’s realities include an overprotective mother, a school system that has not made the needed adjustments for her maximum independence, a knowledgeable coach, and a grandfather in the early stages of Alzheimer’s Disease. Initially, she feels stuck with her fellow carpoolers from the trailer park as they are shunned by the “townies.” Bert is on the autism spectrum and Coralee aspires to win a beauty pageant with her singing. Ellie’s adjustment to her new school includes finding the value in each of these friendships. A member of our De Grummond Book Group had an apt description of the book’s characters as being “flawed people who are trying.”
In the author’s note at the end, Jamie Sumner gives a shout-out to her own child in a wheelchair and knows his need to be seen for his ability as well as his disability. This gives an authenticity to the truth and feelings of the book in an Own Voices manner.