Painfully realistic, this is a strong addition to the middle-grade shelf.
In her first graphic novel for kids, Knisley explores the struggles and joys of blending families.
Jen is not happy about the newest change to her life: She and her mother are moving from the city to the country, where her mom and her mom’s boyfriend, Walter, are starting a farm. This is her mom’s dream, but it’s certainly not Jen’s. Forced to help out at the farmers market, an uncertain Jen is left to independently run the till (without a calculator) even though she’s anxious about making change. Everything gets even worse when her new stepsisters arrive. While little Reese mostly stays out of the way, Andy is a confident know-it-all who completely gets on Jen’s nerves, just like Andy’s father, who ignores others’ feelings and commands space in a way that some readers may recognize as abusive. Knisley expertly renders the shame and frustration Jen feels at her lack of agency, balancing it with a positive shift in her relationship with her new siblings as they begin to reveal their own vulnerabilities. Although Jen’s stepsisters come around to see his behavior is hurtful, Walter is never held accountable. In her author’s note, Knisley references “My ‘Walter’ ” with some fondness and further explores the parallels between her own childhood and her semiautobiographical story. All characters seem white; the setting seems to be the 1990s.
Painfully realistic, this is a strong addition to the middle-grade shelf. (Graphic historical fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-12524-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: RH Graphic
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
A sympathetic, compelling introduction to wolves from the perspective of one wolf and his memorable journey.
Separated from his pack, Swift, a young wolf, embarks on a perilous search for a new home.
Swift’s mother impresses on him early that his “pack belongs to the mountains and the mountains belong to the pack.” His father teaches him to hunt elk, avoid skunks and porcupines, revere the life that gives them life, and “carry on” when their pack is devastated in an attack by enemy wolves. Alone and grieving, Swift reluctantly leaves his mountain home. Crossing into unfamiliar territory, he’s injured and nearly dies, but the need to run, hunt, and live drives him on. Following a routine of “walk-trot-eat-rest,” Swift traverses prairies, canyons, and deserts, encountering men with rifles, hunger, thirst, highways, wild horses, a cougar, and a forest fire. Never imagining the “world could be so big or that I could be so alone in it,” Swift renames himself Wander as he reaches new mountains and finds a new home. Rife with details of the myriad scents, sounds, tastes, touches, and sights in Swift/Wander’s primal existence, the immediacy of his intimate, first-person, present-tense narration proves deeply moving, especially his longing for companionship. Realistic black-and-white illustrations trace key events in this unique survival story, and extensive backmatter fills in further factual information about wolves and their habitat.
A sympathetic, compelling introduction to wolves from the perspective of one wolf and his memorable journey. (additional resources, map) (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: May 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-06-289593-6
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Greenwillow Books
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2019
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