By: Faith Erin Hicks
This book is a great graphic novel written by Faith Erin Hicks who presents a story of a young teen named Maggie. She is the protagonist of the story and she has three big brothers who always have her back. In the beginning years of Maggie, she was always home schooled and now has to start a new life in high school. This character has never had real friends or has gone to an actual school. So the book makes you wonder what type of friend or student she will be? How would you feel if it was your first time at a school? Maggie has a missing mother, a dad who is chief of police, three brothers, a little haunted, and terrified to start high school.
Thus far, this book has a lot of twists expressing enthusiasm and dynamic sibling and friend adventures. Maggie meets two new friends, Lucy and Alistair who are not so popular at school and do not have lots of friends either like Maggie. But they are always together every where they go, and invite Maggie to hang around with them. Thy go the theater/movies, to the museum, and even end up at police station for stealing a nineteenth century prosthetic hand. Why not read about this fun adventure mystery story that Maggie, Al and Lucy go through besides many other ideas mentioned in the book involving different teen stories.
This graphic novel has great comic pictures, font is perfect to read, and best of all demonstrates great teen topics like high school issues, new friendships, a mysterious reaper story, the haunted issues of a teen, and most importantly family/brother/sisters topic.
If anyone is interested to know more about the book, or shop and buy the book, or even look at a free 20 page preview. This website will most likely help:
Pattillo, Lissa. "About Friends With Boys - Friends With Boys." Friends With Boys. Web. Apr. 2014. http://www.friendswithboys.com/about/ It also has an alternative ending you can look at, Good luck!
5 comments:
Hey, Evelyn,
This sounds like a cool graphic novel. So many adolescents experience a move to a different town, a different school, and they try to figure out how to fit in.
I'll bet the fact that her father is the chief of police and that she is always under the eyes of her protective big brothers adds to her struggle in making new friends--boyfriends, in particular!
I'm intrigued by her "haunted" life and missing mother. Maggie certainly sounds like a unique young lady!
You raise good questions: what type of friend would she be? Or a student? She's never really experienced friendship or schooling outside of her family, so she has quite an experience ahead of her.
Thanks for the review,
Sarah
Hey Evelyn!
I think you wrote a great review! The books seems really interesting and is sending a good message.
I think this book would be great for middle schoolers because they are getting reading for a big change in their life (high school). I also think it is great for them because comics will keep their attention a lot longer than other novels. Also from the pictures you provided the graphics seem awesome.
Thanks!
Hi Evelyn,
Thanks for your insightful review! I think this is a great text, as others have mentioned, to help support students as they transition to high school. Do you feel that this text offers the complexity of other texts, such as American Born Chinese? Just curious-- I am trying to appreciate graphic novels more and not dismiss them as being simplistic. (If you see my blog on Good Dog, it appears many graphic novels are seemingly simplistic on the surface, but the unique medium allows for nuanced layering of themes, etc.). Again, thanks for sharing!
-Heather
One of the things that I noticed from reading my comic was that there were some subtle discrepancies or inconsistencies between the text and images. You didn't mention anything about that but I was wondering if you noticed any places, where either the words or the pictures left something open that the other could fill, but didn't?
I would really encourage students to read this novel now. My niece is a Junior in highschool and she was telling me how many kids are into comics. This would be something that I think young adults will like and is something that can teach them about life changes and how to deal with them.
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