![]() ![]() The backmatter includes snippets from Telgemeier’s sketchbook and a photo of her in Día makeup. Telgemeier neatly balances enough issues that a lesser artist would split them into separate stories and delivers as much delight textually as visually. As Cat awakens to the meaning of Halloween and Day of the Dead in this strange new home, she comes to understand the importance of the ghosts both to herself and to Maya. When the ghost adventure leads to Maya’s hospitalization, Cat blames both herself and Carlos, which makes seeing him at school difficult. When Carlos, a tall, brown, and handsome teen Ghost Tour guide introduces the sisters to the Bahía ghosts-most of whom were Spanish-speaking Mexicans when alive-they fascinate Maya and she them, but the terrified Cat wants only to get herself and Maya back to safety. Despite her health, Maya loves adventure, even if her lungs suffer for it and even when Cat must follow to keep her safe. Both Emmie and Kate appear to be white, but school scenes reveal multiethnic classmates.Ĭlassic middle school themes come alive, but they fail to really go anywhereĬatrina narrates the story of her mixed-race (Latino/white) family’s move from Southern California to Bahía de la Luna on the Northern California coast.ĭad has a new job, but it’s little sister Maya’s lungs that motivate the move: she has had cystic fibrosis since birth-a degenerative breathing condition. However, the repetition of Emmie’s description as quiet, shy, and disenfranchised becomes as grating as a nasal whine. Though readers may be puzzled by the device initially, Libenson’s rationale for the dual portrayals becomes clear in the end. An artist using her doodles to illustrate the seventh-grade world, Emmie sees herself as someone with no voice, while the enigmatic, charismatic Kate is full of confidence and determined to push Emmie out of her comfort zone. Libenson uses two different illustration styles to distinguish between Emmie, the soft-spoken wallflower, and Kate, the outgoing girl of fabulousness. Emmie is a painfully shy girl who is forced to see and be seen one fateful day when a playful game with best friend Brianna turns into a nightmare. ![]() With doodle-illustrated prose chapters depicting Emmie’s world and entire comics-style sections depicting the popular Kate, Libenson takes readers inside the halls of middle school with the same nod to weirdness and eye-rolling angst as such format standards as Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Dork Diaries. However, even end-of-the-world–level heartache can have surprising and comic consequences.Įmmie’s story is part of the growing subgenre that hybridizes the middle-grade and graphic novel. One bad day in seventh grade can feel like a lifetime.
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