While this well-intentioned effort may appeal to some readers and does provide helpful insight into some challenging...
This slender volume, effectively translated from French, lightly covers the skill of assertiveness, including when to deploy it and when to tone it down.
Many young teens encounter situations when they need to find a way to say no to friends, classmates, adults or perhaps even well-meaning parents. Using brief scenarios and extremely quirky and appealing cartoon-strip illustrations, this effort explores in some depth a variety of pertinent dilemmas, but its advice is only superficial. For example, the author envisions a situation in which a girl is heavily pressured by a controlling friend and then describes at length the psychodynamics that cause her to accept uncomplainingly the friend’s unpleasant behavior. Unfortunately, the section concludes without ever offering specifics to resolve the problem. A chapter on bullying also comes up short. After explaining what might motivate bullies, the advice is, “Learn how to defend your rights and calmly stand up for yourself." Sometimes the illustrations don’t do much to expand on the text; other times, they are placed out of sync with it, which is confusing. Many of the pages’ backgrounds are divided either vertically or horizontally into two contrasting background colors; the vertically divided pages can be visually distracting, particularly when the background color is too dark for effective contrast.
While this well-intentioned effort may appeal to some readers and does provide helpful insight into some challenging situations, it alone will not solve many problems. (Nonfiction. 10-15)Pub Date: June 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4197-0198-6
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: April 17, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2012
A rich and deeply felt slice of life.
Crafting fantasy worlds offers a budding middle school author relief and distraction from the real one in this graphic memoir debut.
Everyone in Tori’s life shows realistic mixes of vulnerability and self-knowledge while, equally realistically, seeming to be making it up as they go. At least, as she shuttles between angrily divorced parents—dad becoming steadily harder to reach, overstressed mom spectacularly incapable of reading her offspring—or drifts through one wearingly dull class after another, she has both vivacious bestie Taylor Lee and, promisingly, new classmate Nick as well as the (all-girl) heroic fantasy, complete with portals, crystal amulets, and evil enchantments, taking shape in her mind and on paper. The flow of school projects, sleepovers, heart-to-heart conversations with Taylor, and like incidents (including a scene involving Tori’s older brother, who is having a rough adolescence, that could be seen as domestic violence) turns to a tide of change as eighth grade winds down and brings unwelcome revelations about friends. At least the story remains as solace and, at the close, a sense that there are still chapters to come in both worlds. Working in a simple, expressive cartoon style reminiscent of Raina Telgemeier’s, Sharp captures facial and body language with easy naturalism. Most people in the spacious, tidily arranged panels are White; Taylor appears East Asian, and there is diversity in background characters.
A rich and deeply felt slice of life. (afterword, design notes) (Graphic memoir. 10-13)Pub Date: May 18, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-316-53889-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2021
PERSPECTIVES
Full of laughter and sentiment, this is a nudge for readers to dare to try new things.
A 1989 summer trip to Europe changes Caldecott Medal winner Santat’s life in this graphic memoir.
Young Dan hasn’t experienced much beyond the small Southern California town he grew up in. He stays out of trouble, helps his parents, and tries to go unnoticed in middle school. That plan gets thwarted when he is made to recite poetry at a school assembly and is humiliated by his peers. When eighth grade is over and his parents send him on a three-week study abroad program, Dan isn’t excited at first. He’s traveling with girls from school whom he has awkward relationships with, his camera breaks, and he feels completely out of place. But with the help of some new friends, a crush, and an encouraging teacher, Dan begins to appreciate and enjoy the journey. Through experiences like his first taste of Fanta, first time hearing French rap, and first time getting lost on his own in a foreign country in the middle of the night, he finally begins to feel comfortable just being himself and embracing the unexpected. This entertaining graphic memoir is a relatable story of self-discovery. Flashbacks to awkward memories are presented in tones of blue that contrast with the full-color artwork through which Santat creates the perfect balance of humor and poignancy. The author’s note and photos offer readers more fun glimpses into his pivotal adventure.
Full of laughter and sentiment, this is a nudge for readers to dare to try new things. (Graphic memoir. 10-14)Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-250-85104-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: First Second
Review Posted Online: Nov. 28, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2022
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
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