Smile Book Review

I've been in a Graphic Novel mood lately so I went ahead and read Smile.

Like Ghosts, this is a personal, relatable, witty story of growing up, family, friends and young love. The biggest difference is that Smile is basically a retelling of the middle school years of Telgemeier's life. There is something about knowing that these things actually happened to Telgemeier that make the story more interesting, at least to me anyway. 

When I'm not reading children's literature, I mostly read memoirs. Since Smile covers a short specific period of Telgemeier's life, it is essentially a memoir in graphic novel form. That is something you don't come across every day, and I loved everything about it. I love the specific instances that Telgemeier pulls from that were painful, profound, or devastating. I'm always fascinated to hear when someone, an author or otherwise, recounts a story from their life that shaped them into the person they would become in the future.

Not to mention the crux of the story which was Telgemeier's dental issues and the internal issues they caused. I'm not sure how common of a fear dental accidents are, but I know I have dreams about losing my teeth all the time. They can't be that rare. That being said, as an adult who had a retainer with a built in fake tooth during high school myself, this story was all too familiar. I cringed, I laughed, and I remembered dealing with a lot of those same feelings myself. 

Not only is Smile a great reminder for some of us of the struggles of adolescence, it's also a gentle, earnest preview for younger readers of things to come. That's not to say that every child will go through the issues portrayed in Smile, but they will most certainly know someone who does. There is something about the medium here that portrays emotions in a way pure text would surely have done differently, and I think the story was better for it. The expressions on Telgemeier's face are priceless and the simple features on her face speak volumes. 

Hopefully the messages they relate will help some young people know that those rough times don't last forever, and maybe some others will learn the importance of empathy for those who are not quite as sure of themselves as everyone else. Smile is a fantastic snapshot of the awkward, hilarious and sometimes life-changing events that fill those early teenage years. For it's ability to create laughter, understanding, and show that little light at the end of the seemingly endless tunnel of puberty, I give Smile 9/10 retainers. 

The Little Prince Book Review

After putting it off for longer than I care to admit, I finally got around to reading The Little Prince.

While this is a very quick read, I first have to say that it took me a little bit to really engage with the book. The author's introductory story about a child's interaction with adults and constantly being misunderstood seemed a little too on the nose for my tastes. However, once that child becomes an adult himself and starts to interact with the little prince, I started to understand why this book has been referred to as "beloved". 

This is a thoughtful book for thoughtful people. If you have ever seen a passage in a book and read it over and over to see how it affected you differently each time, this may be the book for you. The Little Prince is not a page turner where you're dying to see what happens to the protagonist as they navigate through their conflict. Instead, it is a slow, sad story that leads to an expected end, and even though that end is expected, it doesn't make it any less interesting or powerful. 

I think that it is important that I emphasize the fact that I think if I was a child, I would have put this book down after the first chapter. I think the events of the plot could easily be understood by a child, but I feel like interest in this book stems from interest in what the characters tell us about life, and the ability to interpret those lessons comes with a maturity that children may not yet possess. Even now as an adult, I am not entirely confident that I made the right interpretations, but maybe that's beside the point. Perhaps it only matters that I made my own interpretations and did not take each event literally. 

Thinking back, I remember feelings of sadness and hope mixed together throughout the story. It reminded me of different times in my life and different decisions I've had to make. I don't think that I would ever reread the entire book, but I could easily see myself rereading passages to remember specific insights. It isn't anything that I would call life-changing, but there are several instances that are very memorable. 

In the end, I did enjoy The Little Prince, but I would not say that I loved it. For being a children's book that is not entirely for children, I give it 7/10 tiny planets. 

Ghosts Book Review

After reading Sunny Side Up, I wanted to revisit Raina Telgemeier's Ghosts.

The two books share several similarities. They both follow main characters who are dealing with mature, real life problems. Both books also deal with those issues with humor and understanding. They each portray characters trying to make friends and find out exactly where they fit into a new situation. While Sunny Side Up was an entirely realistic portrayal of a character's summer in Florida, Ghosts takes a turn that you may or may not expect. 

Based on the title, one might not be surprised that *potential spoiler* ghosts do in fact play a huge part in the storyline. Personally, I was surprised to the ghosts pop up. Based on some of Telgemeir's previous work, what I expected to be a realistic fiction story ended up being what some would consider a fantasy. 

Plot points and realism/fantasy aside, I thought that Ghosts was a wonderful story about family, tradition, and figuring out what you believe. I thought that Telgemeier did a great job of relating the idea that we may not have all the answers and that's okay, especially for a teenager. 

I have heard some criticisms of the book from different circles. Certain religious groups may not like the ideas of ghosts appearing the way they do in the same way that some groups were very anti-Harry Potter. I understand that this is a valid criticism if that is what you believe. Personally, I viewed the story's use of ghosts as more of an analogy. The ghosts are simply a device to get the main character, and the reader by proxy, to form questions about what they believe about the afterlife or lack thereof. They are a way for someone to come to their own understanding of loss and what it means to remember or be connected to family once the are gone. 

I have also heard criticisms of the way the missions in California are represented.  The main issue being that it inaccurately portrays or makes light of what happened at those missions in the past. Personally, I was not even aware of what those missions were or what they represented in general. For me, this book was an opportunity to learn about something new. I think the parallel that some complaints might draw is that portraying the missions the way they do would be as if the characters found a southern plantation filled with smiling ghosts. It would undermine the tragedy of what happened at those places. Yes, this is a missed opportunity to address some of those things, but I don't think the book should be discredited because of it. 

Without giving too much away, there are happy ghosts, but there are sad ghosts as well. As a reader, it makes you curious about each ghost and what circumstances caused them to leave the land of the living. I don't think the book celebrates the idea that everyone who is a ghost in this town died a happy death. 

In the end, this is a children's book and I think introducing the heavy ideas behind death and what comes next are difficult for any author and even more difficult for any child to grasp. Telgemeier does an exceptional job of broaching the subject. She may have been wiser to avoid the use of missions and perhaps just have the ghosts come from the town itself. After all, people die everywhere, not just places that were subject to tragedy. 

Overall, I really enjoyed Ghosts and many of my students have as well. I realize that it may not be entirely historically accurate, or rather that it may undermine certain people in history. I also realize that this is a book titled Ghosts that is about ghosts and is full of ghosts and I did not read it for it's accuracies. I read it for Telgemeier's relatable, personal writing that dives so deep into the intricacies of family, growing up and the humor that she brings to it. 4.5/5.

Sunny Side Up Book Review

I recently read this wonderful little book. 

It's my favorite kind of story. A coming of age tale mixed in with lightheartedness, humor, and real emotion. The story follows 10 year old Sunshine Lewin during a visit to stay with her Grandfather in Florida at his retirement community. The story as to why she's there is told in small flashbacks throughout the book. It's a story about being a kid, but not knowing exactly what it means to be a kid. We have all had times in our lives where we wished to be older, younger, or just wished we weren't so confused about what we were at the time.

Sunny Side Up is a great story for anyone who has ever had to keep a secret, or anyone who might have to one day, which is everyone. It gently relates ideas that younger readers might be curious about, but that they might be too scared to ask an adult about. I think the audience also includes readers who think they already understand adult issues. It sheds a new light on those issues and how to deal with them with humor, sympathy and humanity.

This is a quick read. It could be read in an hour or two, or it could be read over the course of days. Just reading through the text would be a very quick endeavor, but some panels evoke so much story and emotion while saying so little that the reader could pour over them for great lengths and not get bored.

I didn't feel that much upon finishing this book. I thought, "That was cute. I liked it." After a few days passed by, scenes from the book kept popping up in my head. The old woman on the bench, the picnic in July, and the bar stools seated next to unlimited OJ for 5 cents. Each time I thought of one, I either felt nostalgically rocketed back to my own childhood, or reminded of my own needs to be a better person as an adult.

Like I said before, this is a wonderful little book and I give it 4 out of 5 eggs - all cooked Sunny Side Up.

Tomfoolery

I read once that one of the best ways to improve your writing is to just write non-stop. I have always enjoyed writing, but I know that my talent level leaves something to be desired. I guess that's why I'm here now. I've had a few blogs in the past, but they were all things that I had to write about rather than things I wanted to write about.

It will be nice to just write and not have to worry about a grade, a review or rude comment. This is just for me. You are welcome to read it, but this is not for any ideas I want to promote. It's not for any agenda I want to spread. I just want to write. I want to write about things that I like. I want to write about things that are frivolous and innocuous, and I think this will be just that. So let's go.