A finely executed, wonderfully evocative tale of teen discovery.
A graphic novel takes the form of a teenage doodler’s diary in 1987.
Nick Pope’s family just moved across town, meaning he’s starting his sophomore year at a new high school with new classmates. So far, it isn’t going well. Nick has two purple birthmarks around his eyes, so he always looks as if he’s just been punched in the face. His new classmates call him Raccoon. At home, he has no one to talk to. His older sister, April, is away at college. His sixth-grader brother, Jamie, has already kissed a girl (something Nick has never done). Then Nick starts to make some friends. There’s Preston, a music lover who always wears the denim jacket that belonged to his dead brother. There’s also Sharita, the pregnant girl he meets in study hall. Plus, there’s Coach Pierson, his accounting teacher who seems to pay him special attention, though Nick doesn’t know how he feels about it. Nick wants to be an artist and, with Preston’s encouragement, he is selected for a committee of six students to paint a mural downtown. But just as Nick begins to feel as if he’s found a place for himself, he learns there are downsides to any sort of relationship. Especially in high school, where things start to get very adult very quickly. Stanton’s writing perfectly captures Nick’s angsty teenage insecurity. Here he describes a missed connection with a pretty girl at a mall: “I felt the back of my neck get all prickly” and then “she turned and looked at me. She glanced at me like I was a dead mouse. That’s how a lot of people look at me. I smiled at her like I practice in the mirror. I pictured us on the dance floor together and a Billy Joel song playing…Then she walked past and it was all over.” Just as compelling are the black-and-white illustrations by Darling, who died in 2018. They delightfully replicate the drawings a creative loner would make in his journal. By turns gritty and sweet, the book deftly captures the confusion of adolescence.
A finely executed, wonderfully evocative tale of teen discovery.Pub Date: May 5, 2023
ISBN: 979-8393139346
Page Count: 142
Publisher: Amazon Digital Services LLC
Review Posted Online: July 21, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A fast-paced dip into the possibility of a world without human emotions.
A teenage girl refuses a medical procedure to remove her heart and her emotions.
June lives in a future in which a reclusive Scientist has pioneered a procedure to remove hearts, thus eliminating all “sadness, anxiety, and anger.” The downside is that it numbs pleasurable feelings, too. Most people around June have had the procedure done; for young people, in part because doing so helps them become more focused and successful. Before long, June is the only one among her peers who still has her heart. When her parents decide it’s time for her to have the procedure so she can become more focused in school, June hatches a plan to pretend to go through with it. She also investigates a way to restore her beloved sister’s heart, joining forces with Max, a classmate who’s also researching the Scientist because he has started to feel again despite having had his heart removed. The pair’s journey is somewhat rushed and improbable, as is the resolution they achieve. However, the story’s message feels relevant and relatable to teens, and the artwork effectively sets the scene, with bursts of color popping throughout an otherwise black-and-white landscape, reflecting the monochromatic, heartless reality of June’s world. There are no ethnic or cultural markers in the text; June has paper-white skin and dark hair, and Max has dark skin and curly black hair.
A fast-paced dip into the possibility of a world without human emotions. (Graphic speculative fiction. 12-18)Pub Date: June 13, 2023
ISBN: 9780063116214
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: April 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2023
A solid introduction for budding lovers of the Bard.
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
The timeless tale of the young and disaffected Danish prince who is pushed to avenge his father’s untimely murder at the hands of his brother unfolds with straightforward briskness. Shakespeare’s text has been liberally but judiciously cut, staying true to the thematic meaning while dispensing with longer speeches (with the notable exception of the renowned “to be or not to be” soliloquy) and intermediary dialogues. Some of the more obscure language has been modernized, with a glossary of terms provided at the end; despite these efforts, readers wholly unfamiliar with the story might struggle with independent interpretation. Where this adaptation mainly excels is in its art, especially as the play builds to its tensely wrought final act. Illustrator Kumar (World War Two, 2015, etc.) pairs richly detailed interiors and exteriors with painstakingly rendered characters, each easily distinguished from their fellows through costume, hairstyle, and bearing. Human figures are generally depicted in bust or three-quarter shots, making the larger panels of full figures all the more striking. Heavily scored lines of ink form shadows, lending the otherwise bright pages a gritty air. All characters are white.
A solid introduction for budding lovers of the Bard. (biography of Shakespeare, dramatis personae, glossary) (Graphic novel. 12-18)Pub Date: Aug. 27, 2019
ISBN: 978-93-81182-51-2
Page Count: 90
Publisher: Campfire
Review Posted Online: July 12, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2019
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