Book Review: Be Prepared by Vera Brosgol

 

Nine year old Vera is a Russian girl living in the suburbs of upstate New York. She just wants to fit in with her peers. She tries to recreate the successful birthday party sleepover (unsuccessfully to her embarrassment), she goes to school, she attends Orthodox church services. Every summer she watches the girls and boys in her class go away to summer camp.  She desperately wants to go away to camp. So when a friend from church mentions Russian camp, and that the church will pay the tuition fees for it, Vera embarks on a campaign to convince her mother to send her and her younger brother to camp the following summer.

So, during the summer between fourth and fifth grade Vera (who is almost ten) and her brother embark on an adventure to a Russian Orthodox scout camp in rural Connecticut. Vera imagines a place where she will make a best friend, and live out what she has heard about camp from the girls she knows from school. Instead, she is placed in a tent with Sasha and Sasha, two fourteen year old's who have been attending camp together since they were six - whom Vera has nothing in common with. Vera struggles with aspects of camp - The dreaded Hollywood (a spider infested outhouse), washing one's hair in the lake, and morning ablutions in the stream. Combined with the fact that Vera is having a hard time making friends, navigating the Russian history lessons, and attending church services outdoors in the rain camp is a miserable experience. But when her mother shares that she is extending the siblings time in camp because she needs to travel for a job interview Vera is crushed. Instead of going home, she has to navigate  the now familiar routines of camp life, can she make a friend and survive the following two weeks?

Be Prepared is based on the experiences of Vera Brosgol when she attended camp as a child. The story strikes authentically with the experiences of an immigrant child trying to fit in. I was happy to find this in the bundle of graphic novels I received recently, as I loved her first book Anya's Ghost. The artwork in this was poignant and the brown and green shading really made the melancholy feeling Vera (the protagonist) has during her camp experience.  In addition, I loved the way the book ends and I hope we see another volume with Vera and her family as they move to another country for her mother's new job.

Book Review: Ghosts by Raina Telgemeier

 Cat and her family are moving from sunny Los Angeles California to the northern California town of Bahía de la Luna. She is very unhappy to be leaving her friends, and the home that she knows. However, the big reason for the move is her younger sister's health. Maya, has cystic fibrosis which affects her lungs, and the cool salty ocean air is something that can hopefully help sooth her breathing issues.

Bahía de la Luna, is not what Cat expects. She and Maya meet a boy Cat's age Carlos, who turns out to be a new neighbor. He and his family share that Bahía de la Luna is a place where ghosts are found, as they like the cool foggy weather and that the mission above the town is a gateway between the worlds of the living and the dead. The town celebrates The Day of the Dead with a big party every year.

Cat, and her family have a chance to reconnect with the Mexican traditions of her mother's heritage. We get to know the more pessimistic Cat and her optimistic sister Maya, and in the process learn that some of Cat's wariness to embrace the idea of ghosts comes from the fear of losing her sister to her illness.

This is a story of discovery, and family rooted in tradition amongst change. Like other Raina Telgemeir graphic novels the artwork is very very good. As a non-native to California I didn't get some of the cultural references that other people I know who have read and reviewed the book who grew up in California mentioned. But I did think it interesting that the ghosts as introduced are primarily Mexican and enjoy being spoken to in Spanish. It almost felt like the Mexican identity was being forced into the story.  I think if the focus of Maya's Cystic Fibrosis and the introduction of the topic of death for such a young age had been told a slightly different manner it might have been a stronger more authentic story and not had that slight feeling of cultural appropriation it left me feeling.

I am glad that I read it, and I will recommend it to others, as it does approach the idea of a degenerative disease suffered by a young person in a sensitive and gentle way.

Book review: Bufo byTerra Ciel

Title: Bufo

Author: Terra Ciel

Illustrator: L' Etoile

Publisher: nature's dance publishing and photographic LLC

Bufo is the story of Bufo the frog. He looks very different from the other frogs who make fun of him and won't play with him. He makes a wish on a falling star for a friend. This wish leaves him open to friendship from two butterflies. Their daily play takes him far from his home where he gets lost. Bufo is helped by a white rabbit named Bonzy who invites him to live in the Lotus pond by his burrow. Bufo makes friends of the pond dwellers who see Bufo for who he is not what he looks like.  But when Bonzy is captured by a human and taken into the "big house" can Bufo muster the strength and courage to rescue his friend?

Bufo is a children's book. The story it tells takes on the topic of differences in people (or in this case animals), how we shouldn't judge by what a person looks like, and friendship.  The story itself is engaging if a little long. It works quite well as a moral story. 

However, this is not a good picture book.  It has an extremely interesting mix of real photographs and illustrated elements to the pages. This is not always engaging as the illustrations can seem like they are poping off of the photographs at times. Unlike Mo Willem's Knuffle Bunny which also uses this illustration style because the pictures as well as the illustrations are in color they sometimes just seem to float on the background without being as eye drawing as Willem's color illustrations on black and white or sepia toned photographs. Also the length of the text on the pages and how it is laid out makes it hard to read at times. I feel that this story would be better read as a read a loud because of this.

This is a good attempt at producing children's literature. I was left wondering if this was originally written and illustrated for a children's literature course, as it has the feel of some of the attempts by my classmates for a similar project.  I would recommend it for stronger young readers, and not early readers.  I believe the publisher is local to me as I took this copy from an area little free library that had multiple copies in it and have seen other little free libraries in the area with copies of this book in it.