El Deafo

El Deafo

by Cece Bell

Genre: Juvenile Fiction, Graphic Novel, Memoir

Synopsis:  Starting at a new school is scary, even more so with a giant hearing aid strapped to your chest! At her old school, everyone in Cece's class was deaf. Here she is different. She is sure the kids are staring at the Phonic Ear, the powerful aid that will help her hear her teacher. Too bad it also seems certain to repel potential friends. 

Then Cece makes a startling discovery. With the Phonic Ear she can hear her teacher not just in the classroom, but anywhere her teacher is in school--in the hallway...in the teacher's lounge...in the bathroom! This is power. Maybe even superpower! Cece is on her way to becoming El Deafo, Listener for All. But the funny thing about being a superhero is that it's just another way of feeling different... and lonely. Can Cece channel her powers into finding the thing she wants most, a true friend?

This funny perceptive graphic novel memoir about growing up hearing impaired is also an unforgettable book about growing up, and all the super and super embarrassing moments along the way.

from GoodReads

Review:  I'm still not a huge fan of graphic novels but I can see how this book, both story and format, would highly appeal to kids.  This is a semi-autobiographic novel of Cece's life growing up with hearing loss.  Cece, who is portrayed as a bunny, gets sick as a young child and loses most of her hearing but hearing aids and learning to lip read help her continue to be successful in a hearing environment.  Cece is so self conscious about sticking out and being different that sometimes she doesn't realize that people are overlooking the hearing aids.  This book is funny but also sends a powerful message about accepting differences.  While it is an easy book to read, I think it would be most meaningful to slightly older kids--perhaps around 4th grade. 

Rating: 4 stars

Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?

Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant?

by Roz Chast

Genre: Memoir, Graphic Novel

Synopsis:  In her first memoir, Roz Chast brings her signature wit to the topic of aging parents. Spanning the last several years of their lives and told through four-color cartoons, family photos, and documents, and a narrative as rife with laughs as it is with tears, Chast's memoir is both comfort and comic relief for anyone experiencing the life-altering loss of elderly parents.

When it came to her elderly mother and father, Roz held to the practices of denial, avoidance, and distraction. But when Elizabeth Chast climbed a ladder to locate an old souvenir from the "crazy closet"—with predictable results—the tools that had served Roz well through her parents' seventies, eighties, and into their early nineties could no longer be deployed.

While the particulars are Chast-ian in their idiosyncrasies—an anxious father who had relied heavily on his wife for stability as he slipped into dementia and a former assistant principal mother whose overbearing personality had sidelined Roz for decades—the themes are universal: adult children accepting a parental role; aging and unstable parents leaving a family home for an institution; dealing with uncomfortable physical intimacies; managing logistics; and hiring strangers to provide the most personal care.

An amazing portrait of two lives at their end and an only child coping as best she can, Can't We Talk about Something More Pleasant will show the full range of Roz Chast's talent as cartoonist and storyteller.

from GoodReads

Review:  I went into this book being a little dubious about graphic novels as they are not my normal cup of tea.  My library was challenging patrons to read books in a format that they don't normally read for the summer reading program.  This book was recommended to me by one of the librarians saying that it is appealing to everyone and bittersweet.  I'm a big fan of memoirs and I think that helped me like this book even though it is in a format that is quite different for me.  I did have trouble connecting with the main character as she did not seem to have a close relationship with her parents and that she had a hard time taking charge of the situation.  I also wonder if I'm not the right target audience for this book as, knock on wood, I'm a ways away from dealing with this situation.  Chast is pretty brutally honest in this memoir but she does so with humor but also we feel her sadness for having to acknowledge that her parents have become elderly.  I think this is a well written graphic novel memoir and that readers in the right phase of their life would really appreciate this book.

Rating: 3 stars

Flora and Ulysses

Flora & Ulysses

Kate DiCamillo

Genre: Chapter Book/Illustrated Novel

Summary (from Goodreads):  Holy unanticipated occurrences! A cynic meets an unlikely superhero in a genre-breaking new novel by master storyteller Kate DiCamillo. It begins, as the best superhero stories do, with a tragic accident that has unexpected consequences. The squirrel never saw the vacuum cleaner coming, but self-described cynic Flora Belle Buckman, who has read every issue of the comic book Terrible Things Can Happen to You!, is the just the right person to step in and save him. What neither can predict is that Ulysses (the squirrel) has been born anew, with powers of strength, flight, and misspelled poetry—and that Flora will be changed too, as she discovers the possibility of hope and the promise of a capacious heart. From #1 New York Times best-selling author Kate DiCamillo comes a laugh-out-loud story filled with eccentric, endearing characters and featuring an exciting new format—a novel interspersed with comic-style graphic sequences and full-page illustrations, all rendered in black-and-white by up-and-coming artist K.G. Campbell.

Marcie's Review: I got this book in my library's "Blind Date with a Book" section; it was listed as quirky yet lovable, and I would completely agree!  The library had shelved it originally in the Buzz Books section, and as I was reading, I kept wondering if this was really an adult's book.  Well, when I started looking at it on goodreads, I found out that it is in fact a middle school aged children's book.  So I am reviewing this with the understanding that it is a children's book.

This is the kind of chapter book that I would love for my kids to read, maybe in a few years since the vocabulary is well beyond my daughter's level right now.  Sure, there's very little chance that a 10 year old would use such great vocabulary words like malfeasance, but I loved that the author included them.  It helped make Flora's character so intelligently charming and unusual.  I was unsure about reading a book that contained graphic novel elements, because I have tried to read some solely illustrated young adult books, and I haven't been able to get into them.  But this book was perfect - mostly chapters, with the occasional illustration.  A very fun book!  And as a bonus, you can read the entire book in a few hours.

Marcie's Rating: 4 stars

Becky's Review:  What a fun, quirky book!  Flora was such an interesting little girl.  Actually all the characters were unique and different.  The events of this book were quite unexpected. I imagine kids will love this story.  I did find the vocabulary a little distracting because even I did not know what the words meant and had to look them up.  I think kids might struggle with them because they are very advanced words.  I did want more at the end.  I wanted to know what was going to happen next.  Maybe the author has plans to write more with these characters, who knows?  I hope she does because they were definitely fun to read.

Becky's Rating: 4 stars

Blankets

Blankets

by Craig Thompson

Genre: Graphic Novel

Synopsis: At 592 pages, Blankets may well be the single largest graphic novel ever published without being serialized first.

Wrapped in the landscape of a blustery Wisconsin winter, Blankets explores the sibling rivalry of two brothers growing up in the isolated country, and the budding romance of two coming-of-age lovers. A tale of security and discovery, of playfulness and tragedy, of a fall from grace and the origins of faith. A profound and utterly beautiful work from Craig Thompson.

Review: I read this book as one of my book club friends recommended it to me and lent it to me.  I struggled with this book but I don't think it's due to the quality of the book, it's due to the book being a graphic novel.  This is my first graphic novel and I'm not sure I will read another.  I felt that I had to infer the author's meaning many times in order to understand the story.  The author/illustrator is quite clearly a talented illustrator as the drawings were amazing.  At times there weren't enough words-just drawings.  It's quite a different way to read a story.  I also felt that there wasn't too much of a plot.  At times the book seemed to be going in one direction and then at other times in a different direction.  Perhaps it touched on too many issues to make a complete story.  It is a fast read even though it is a long book because most of the book is graphics.

Rating: 2 1/2 stars