ESTHER'S NOTEBOOKS

A collection of 156 installments of a weekly comic strip by cartoonist Sattouf that follows the everyday life of a real Parisian girl—his friend's daughter—from ages 9 to 12 as she shares her thoughts on issues both timely and timeless.

Young Esther lives with her mother, father, and older brother (and eventually a baby brother) in Paris’ 17th arrondissement. They are of modest means but nevertheless send Esther to a private school—a decision Esther doesn’t quite understand but her beloved dad attributes to wanting to keep her safe from “little punks.” Being a working-class kid in a private school—where she is popular and does well in her studies—informs Esther’s perspective as she amusingly and insightfully narrates her thoughts on family, gender, celebrity, wealth, terrorism, religion, racism, politics, love, and flies. She also explores her fantastical dreams and aspirations to be a book editor. Sometimes Esther has the misunderstandings of a child (she mishears adult terms, like the name of a pornographic website), and sometimes those misunderstandings are more complex, like Esther’s feeling that homosexuality doesn’t make sense because having two dads would mean no one would be around to cook or clean the house, a belief based on her own family’s domestic dynamics. Esther’s opinions can be controversial, and she is obsessed with people’s appearances, but the innocence and bravado with which she explains them are reminders that the decency of the person is more important than the opinions they hold. Sattouf is a superb cartoonist, and each strip is a master class in the form. The serialized nature of the original makes some information repetitive, and the plot meanders with the seasons and discoveries of adolescent life. But the overall effect is a treat.

Insightful, amusing, and elegant.