This One Summer by Mariko and Jillian Tamaki is the third book I read for my book club. It is a graphic novel about a middle school girl named Rose and her summer vacation. Each year, her family stays at a lake house in Awago Beach. Her younger friend, Windy, is also there every summer.
The pictures were drawn beautifully and had small details that contributed immensely to the story itself. The artwork was probably my favorite part of the story--I examined all of the pages closely, thinking about the choices that the illustrator was making.
This book is basically a memoir about a girl's summer. The beginning is the arrival at the lake house and the end is the leaving of the lake house. Over the course of the summer, the two girls experience quite a bit of drama surrounding local teenagers. They face several issues that I think teens can connect with, but nothing really comes of it...no lessons learned, no problems solved...they just experience.
I think the moment that disappointed me the most was the way Rose reacted to the local girls and the words she used to describe them. It saddened me that she would make the statements and brush it off as if it was no big deal. That vocabulary is my reason for not recommending this book for middle school. It is definitely a YA choice, but I am sure there are many students that can connect to the issues taking place throughout the novel.
This one is touchy. It has very sensitive material, so it would be up to the reader or the parents to determine if it is an appropriate read. It is also a very quick read since it is a graphic novel.
No comments:
Post a Comment