A poignant account of journeying through life while navigating mental health and friendships.
Rising sixth grader Katie is different from other kids, what with her freckles, being home-schooled, and the worries constantly buzzing in her head.
Katie is excited to start the summer at her first sleep-away camp with Kacey, her best friend from her home-school co-op. However, as she gets closer to Delaney, a cool, self-assured girl at Camp Aldridge, Kacey becomes distant and resentful. Traversing the beginning of middle school and her evolving relationships and mental health just makes the buzzing in Katie’s head get louder and more persistent. Ormsbee captures the nuances of friendships and the feelings of loneliness a person can experience from being singled out as different. Stereotypes surrounding home schooling are also addressed. The graphic novel unfolds over the course of a year, and the representation is informed by the author’s and illustrator’s own childhood journeys of coping with obsessive-compulsive disorder. OCD is explored in accurate detail throughout Katie’s arc, and the illustrations enhance the depiction, with bees flying around her head whose buzzing increases and decreases in intensity to match the franticness of her thoughts. The varied panels and dynamic, colorful art maintain visual interest. Katie and other main characters read as White; the supporting cast is racially diverse.
A poignant account of journeying through life while navigating mental health and friendships. (author's note, artist's note) (Graphic fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: May 3, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-593-30128-9
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An emotional, much-needed historical graphic novel.
Sandy and his family, Japanese Canadians, experience hatred and incarceration during World War II.
Sandy Saito loves baseball, and the Vancouver Asahi ballplayers are his heroes. But when they lose in the 1941 semifinals, Sandy’s dad calls it a bad omen. Sure enough, in December 1941, Japan bombs Pearl Harbor in the U.S. The Canadian government begins to ban Japanese people from certain areas, moving them to “dormitories” and setting a curfew. Sandy wants to spend time with his father, but as a doctor, his dad is busy, often sneaking out past curfew to work. One night Papa is taken to “where he [is] needed most,” and the family is forced into an internment camp. Life at the camp isn’t easy, and even with some of the Asahi players playing ball there, it just isn’t the same. Trying to understand and find joy again, Sandy struggles with his new reality and relationship with his father. Based on the true experiences of Japanese Canadians and the Vancouver Asahi team, this graphic novel is a glimpse of how their lives were affected by WWII. The end is a bit abrupt, but it’s still an inspiring and sweet look at how baseball helped them through hardship. The illustrations are all in a sepia tone, giving it an antique look and conveying the emotions and struggles. None of the illustrations of their experiences are overly graphic, making it a good introduction to this upsetting topic for middle-grade readers.
An emotional, much-needed historical graphic novel. (afterword, further resources) (Graphic historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5253-0334-0
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
With Ivan’s movie out this year from Disney, expect great interest—it will be richly rewarded.
Tiny, sassy Bob the dog, friend of The One and Only Ivan(2012), returns to tell his tale.
Wisecracking Bob, who is a little bit Chihuahua among other things, now lives with his girl, Julia, and her parents. Happily, her father works at Wildworld Zoological Park and Sanctuary, the zoo where Bob’s two best friends, Ivan the gorilla and Ruby the elephant, live, so Bob gets to visit and catch up with them regularly. Due to an early betrayal, Bob doesn’t trust humans (most humans are good only for their thumbs); he fears he’s going soft living with Julia, and he’s certain he is a Bad Dog—as in “not a good representative of my species.” On a visit to the zoo with a storm threatening, Bob accidentally falls into the gorilla enclosure just as a tornado strikes. So that’s what it’s like to fly. In the storm’s aftermath, Bob proves to everyone (and finally himself) that there is a big heart in that tiny chest…and a brave one too. With this companion, Applegate picks up where her Newbery Medal winner left off, and fans will be overjoyed to ride along in the head of lovable, self-deprecating Bob on his storm-tossed adventure. His wry doggy observations and attitude are pitch perfect (augmented by the canine glossary and Castelao’s picture dictionary of dog postures found in the frontmatter). Gorilla Ivan described Julia as having straight, black hair in the previous title, and Castelao's illustrations in that volume showed her as pale-skinned. (Finished art not available for review.)
With Ivan’s movie out this year from Disney, expect great interest—it will be richly rewarded. (afterword) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-299131-7
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: March 24, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2020
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