Marvelous Middle Grade Monday
Continental Drifter (First Second, 2024) by Kathy MacLeod is a graphic novel that pulls on the heartstrings. It’s a very good read.
Eleven-year-old Kathy is torn between two worlds–Bangkok, Thailand where she and her family live, and Maine where the family is going for the summer. (Kathy’s been there three times.) In Thailand, she’s luk khrueng–half child, because her father is American and her mother is Thai. In rural Maine, no one looks like Kathy. She likes American pizza and southeast Asian rambutans, a spiky sweet fruit. Why is her family so different from others. Why is life so confusing? How can she fit in anywhere?
This is Kathy’s first graphic novel. You can read about her here. Make sure you read the Afterward in the book.
Roller Girl (Dial Books for Young Readers, 2015) by Victoria Jamieson is such a delightful story of hard work, heart, old and new friends, and roller derby! The drawings are fun and really bring the story to life. If you’ve never read a graphic novel, this is the perfect one to start with. Really!
“Imagination is the highest kite that one can fly,” Lauren Bacall once said. Not only is English author/illustrator Alan Snow flying high in his book Here Be Monsters (Atheneum, 2005) but he’s definitely having fun and giving the reader a good time as well. The middle grade graphic novel has a whole cast of interesting characters that live in the city of Ratbridge. We get to meet most of them through a boy named Arthur, who came above ground to get food for himself and his grandfather. Arthur is captured by Snatcher and the Hunt, while they’re out hunting cheeses. Yes, you heard right. Not only will you meet cheeses, but Mr. Nibble, some friendly boxtrolls, a cabbage head or two, some fresh water sea cows, the rabbit women, and the rats and pirates from the Ratbridge Nautical Laundry.