Clinical but helpful overall.
An introspective how-to guide for kids and teens on how to make, keep, and let go of friends.
Moss, a clinical and school psychologist, encourages readers to contemplate what they are looking for in friendships and what kind of friends they want to be as well as giving guidance on what it can mean to be a good friend. Navigating aspects of friendship such as peer pressure (good and bad), disagreements, and feeling alone, each topical chapter starts with a quiz to assess comfort level and understanding; quiz results gently point readers to places where they may need to do some work. With interactive tools and activities, the book sets readers up to better understand themselves and what they want and need, and it offers strategies for handling difficult situations. Case studies involving both girls and boys are peppered throughout each chapter, with questions asking what readers would do in that particular situation, and each chapter ends with a call to action encouraging further reflection. It’s aimed at preteens and teens, but the design can seem a bit dry and textbook-y. With each chapter building on the last, it requires a linear rather than browsing approach. Social media is heavily discussed, and due to social media age restrictions, many in the intended audience may feel it is not relevant to them. Race and culture aren’t addressed except briefly in a discussion about exclusion.
Clinical but helpful overall. (Nonfiction. 10-13)Pub Date: Feb. 16, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4338-3229-1
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Magination/American Psychological Association
Review Posted Online: Dec. 24, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
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
As in their previous collaborations (Colors of Freedom, Voices of Rape, not reviewed), Bode and Mack portray an issue through the voices of children and adults affected by it. Bode (recently deceased) interviewed preteens, their parents, and adult experts, and organized their responses into parts "For Girls and Boys" and "For Parents." In sections with titles like "Public Recognition" or "What's in Your Heart," her text, addressed directly to the reader, synthesizes many of the responses in a way that should comfort and challenge young and adult readers. At least half of the book is comprised of responses she gathered from her survey, some of which are illustrated in strips by Mack. The result is an engagingly designed book, with questions and topics in bold type so that readers can browse for the recognition they may be looking for. They will need to browse, as there is no index, and young readers will certainly be tempted by the "For Parents" section, and vice versa. A bibliography (with two Spanish titles) and list of Web resources (with mostly live links) will help them seek out more information. They may well have other questions—especially having to do with parents' sexuality—which they don't find answered here, but this is a fine and encouraging place to start. (print and on-line resources) (Non-fiction. 9-13)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-689-81945-5
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
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