Doodleville - Chad Sell

Doodleville - Chad Sell

I thought Sell's Cardboard Kingdom was an interesting and original take on how divergent and questioning kids can express themselves through art and creativity.  However, I didn't click with this book. The protagonist, Drew (ha ha! Drew!) created "doodles" — drawings of little creatures that she names and designs the titular city for.  From their inception, they are conscious and animate, moving across walls and interacting with other drawings, which are similarly alive.  No one, not even the adults in the story, seems to remark on this or think it is odd, so the drawings aren't just a metaphor for her feelings, even though the monster, Leviathan, she creates is clearly meant to represent her anxiety.  I found Drew's hysterical grief at Leviathan's rampages to be weirdly out of place, and her art club friends' condemnation and disapproval likewise odd.  I just never engaged with it, but then I'm not the target audience.  Creative children with anxiety would probably differ.  [2.5]

Stepping Stones - Lucy Knisley

Stepping Stones - Lucy Knisley

A fictionalized autobiography about Jen, a girl whose divorced mother moves from the city to a farm, where Jen must do chores and deal with her annoying stepfather.  Taking care of the chickens is all right, and Jen likes helping her mom, but a deep dyscalculia means handling cash at the stand gives her anxiety.  When Walter's two daughters start spending the weekend at the farm, Jen finds one to be whiny and the other a snobby perfectionist who takes over everything she touches.  This is a bittersweet story with all too real characters (unfortunately, I saw a lot of myself in Walter), but a nice ending about making the best of things.  I enjoyed it a lot.  [4]

Fibbed - Elizabeth Agyemang

Fibbed - Elizabeth Agyemang

Nana, an American girl, is in trouble at home and school because she saw a troupe of squirrels steal her teacher's toupee and no one believes her?  Yeah, that sounds pretty dumb, and it sets the tone for the rest.  Nana is sent to stay for the summer with her family and Nigeria, where she is similarly branded a liar, even though her grandmother is well versed in magical story telling.  Eventually the kids discover that white people are destroying the village by sucking out all the magic, and they are enlisted by Ananse to help.  It's all a bit disjointed, with forced, stilted resolutions (summed up as, paraphrased, I see now that even though they called me a liar, I know they were trying to help me [??]), and the worst, flattest, most incompetent art this side of an elementary school.  [1.5]

Sunny Side Up - Jennifer & Matthew Holm

Sunny Side Up - Jennifer & Matthew Holm

1. Sunny Side Up - Sunny Lewin is sent to Florida to stay the summer with her grandfather, shattering her plans for a holiday with her best friend.  Everyone in the retirement community is old, her grandfather smokes, and there's little to do; Disney is not in the picture, but trips to the post office are.  Soon, though, she meets another kid and they bond over comic books and finding lost cats.  Gradually, the reason why Sunny was sent to Florida emerges; her older brother has a substance abuse problem.  Sunny keeps her feelings bottled up until one day she can't anymore.  This is a very sweet, poignant story, based on the authors' real life experiences.  It's light and a very quick read; there aren't any explicit morals or lessons, just a grandfather who turns out to have some of the right answers.  A very skilled handling of a sensitive topic.  [4]

4. Sunny Makes a Splash - I read this book second.  Whoops!  Another sweet Sunny story (also autobiographical) in which not much happens and no big lessons are learned.  Sunny gets a summer job working the snack stand at a pool.  Her grandfather visits as well.  Sunny  gets a small vicarious taste of romance through the older lifeguards at the pool, while making tentative friends with a nice boy who works at the stand as well, even going on a sort of double date.  Oh, and the running theme is that she's scared of the high dive.  Sunny is such an innocent, hard-working, responsible girl that it's baffling why throughout the book the mother is portrayed as such an awful, paranoid harridan, freaking out at both Sunny's exceedingly mild first steps toward teenhood and independence and grandfather's own romantic evenings.  [4]

One Year at Ellsmere - Faith Erin Hicks

One Year at Ellsmere - Faith Erin Hicks

Juniper, a middle class, nerdy girl, begins her school year at Ellsmere, as the prestigious private school's first and only scholarship student.  She makes friends with Cassie, her roommate, a shy girl whose parents are cold and distant.  They both make enemies of Emily, the typical rich girl insecure snob.  When Emily orchestrates a nasty plan to get Juniper expelled, Cassie tries to help make things right.  It's a great story, both funny and dramatic.  It captures the nastiness of teenage school bullying but leavens it with enough cool smart loner type protagonist banter, and just a smidgen of magic, that it's not depressing.  I'd eagerly pick up a sequel.  [4.5]