Graphic Novel

Sometimes I wonder: Can I go through with it? Am I committed to art all the time? Does art save? And is it going to save me?

Cecil Castellucci, a French Canadian author who now makes her home in LA, has written a funny and fun story about a girl named Jane whose world is turned inside out by a terrorist attack in Metro City (clearly an analogy for NYC). Jane's parents move to Kent Waters, Suburbia, in a misguided attempt to find somewhere where they can shield themselves from the true nature of violence in our world, as Jane notes, "as if ANYWHERE is really safe."

Jane's life is altered not just by the physical reality of the move but by seismic shifts in her own values. She immediately cuts her long blonde hair and dies it black in an attempt to signify to the outside world that something new has happened and the girl she was before died in the explosion. Jane begins to notice all the little bits of beauty that we take for granted. In the aftermath of the attack, she cradles one tiny, hardy, LIVING dandelion that managed to grow out of the steel and concrete death of the city. And she adopts the man whose life she's saved, a man now named John Doe, whose sketchbook she brings with her to suburbia.

Rather than fit in with just anyone, Jane holds out for kindred spirits. She fills the sketchbook with their dreams for a better world, a place where public acts of art bring colour and life to dreary, dying cities devoid of personality. Of course, not everyone welcomes creativity. The police begin to crack down on what they deem to be defiling of public property and the P.L.A.I.N. gang find themselves confronted with a choice: give in and live the lives expected of them or continue to be an "art girl gang." (And I use the term girl lightly since their members include the school's only openly gay male and they embrace the help of all of the teens in the city).

This book is funny and funky and highly recommended for anyone interested in the effects of art, terrorism or high school cliques on the human psyche. All ages.

The details: Castellucci, Cecil and Jim Rugg. The Plain Janes. New York: Minx, 2007.