Graphic Novel 3

Mariko Tamaki's Skim, illustrated by Jillian Tamaki, tells the story of Kimberly Keiko Cameron who is nicknamed Skim by her classmates because she isn't slim. Skim wants to be a Wiccan and dresses like a Goth, so when a suicide awareness group forms at her high school they assume she must be depressed and in need of an intervention. Nothing could be further from the truth. Skim is confused and questioning but she is resilient and high spirited.

Skim finds she is growing further and further apart from her best friend, Lisa Soor, and feels like there are few people in her world who comprehend her point of view. Free spriited Ms. Archer, who teaches English and Drama, really connects with Skim on a deeper level, which causes Skim to think about her sexuality.

The book deals with first loves and heartaches (gay and straight) as well as suicide, popularity and cliques while remaining hopeful about the power of human connection to help us through it all. Highly recommended for ages 14-18.

The details: Tamaki, Mariko and Jillian Tamaki. Skim. Toronto: Groundwood, 2008.

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.

Romance

We kiss like it's a form of clasping.

Rachel Cohn and David Levithan's Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist is infinitely better than the movie version by the same name. The book alternates between his and her points of view and explores what happens when two people somehow manage to connect. Really connect. The conversation between them is at times flirtatious, witty, angry and loving. They spend one of those magical nights together where you can just be 18 and young and walking around all night, discovering each other.

The language is lovely (Nick reads the sentences behind her eyes, Norah has fallen into the darkness of the consumed) but funny, funny, funny at the same time. If Nick and Norah were real people I would hope I could be cool enough to be their friends. I have to admit, I was never the kind of kid who could have pulled off playing at punk clubs in Manhattan or knowing where the best bands would play unadvertised concerts to intimate audiences at 3am, when the rest of the city was shutting down for the night. Part of Nick and Norah's charm though is the fact that they can be cutting edge but they're cool with everyone (gay, straight, bi, trans).

This book is great for the woman or man interested in the romantic aspect because it really rings true and resonates on that level (this is the night everyone wishes they could have with the one person out there who makes them laugh and really gets them in a way nobody else does). But it's more than that; the book is political and snarky and funny and discusses everything from Israel to the Beatles. Highly recommended for readers 16-18. Mature themes and language.

The details: Cohn, Rachel and David Levithan. Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006.