7, 8, 9: Indian Summer, Ten Things..., Skim

[puritybrown.livejournal.com]

7: Indian Summer by Pratima Mitchell

YA fiction. Sarla is the London-born-and-raised daughter of a career-oriented TV reporter; when her mother is assigned to a warzone during her school holidays, she's furious at first because their plans to travel together have been destroyed, but soon comes up with an alternative: she can spend the summer with her grandparents in northern India. Her mother's not super enthusiastic about this, and Sarla can tell that there's something going on between her mother and her grandparents, but she goes anyway, and meets Bina, the granddaughter of her grandparents' chief servants. Bina's mother is nowhere to be seen, and the area is troubled by rumours of guerillas, and of Shobharani Devi, the deified bandit queen of the hills...

I loved this book. It's got its moments of humour, but for the most part it's a serious exploration of poverty, corruption, class division, family secrets, friendship, and the cultural gap between British-born Indians and those who actually live in India. Sarla is slightly spoiled, as the contrast between her situation and Bina's makes clear; she suffers a few uncomfortable moments when she's made aware of her privilege as a well-off Western-born girl, and of the limits of her perspective. Bina can be quite harsh with her and there are times when Sarla almost bullies Bina -- without really meaning to, just by the sheer force of her personality. Sarla takes her own assertiveness for granted, which Bina envies; as a servant-class girl with a shameful secret, she's been taught to hold back all her life. Yet despite the contrasts and conflicts between them, they develop a very warm and touching friendship and learn a lot from each other. Highly recommended.

8: Ten Things I Hate About Me by Randa Abdel-Fatteh

This has been reviewed a lot on this comm, and I don't have much to add to other people's comments. It was funny; it was touching; the plot was a bit overly predictable and the resolution a bit pat; overall, I enjoyed it, but not as much as Indian Summer.

9: Skim by Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki

Oh. Ohhhh. Oh, how I wish I could have read this when I was 14.

I've been hearing Jillian Tamaki's name cited positively in connection with comics for ages, but this is the first time I've ever actually read anything of hers; she drew this graphic novel from her cousin Mariko's script. (Mariko also wrote Emiko Superstar, a GN from the late lamented Minx line.) And it is wonderful. I am slightly biased because, race and geography aside, this could have been about me in a lot of ways. But it's not just empathy that drives my love of this graphic novel: it is just so damned good.

"Skim" is the nickname of Kimberly Keiko Cameron, a quiet, overweight, not-terribly-confident Japanese-Canadian 16-year-old who goes to a Catholic girls' school, wants to be a Wiccan witch, and is painfully in love with Ms Archer, her English teacher. Skim is narrated by her diary entries, complete with stricken-out false starts; there's a gap between what happens and what Kim thinks about what happens, and what she wants to think about what happens, that is handled so deftly you won't even notice the Tamakis are doing anything unusual. But they are; narration in comics is usually just another way of moving the story on, not the careful layering of perception, desire and reality that's going on here. Allied to that is the careful placing of the art: Kim is an astute observer of others, but doesn't push herself forward, and the way the panels move from one slightly off-centre image to another embodies perfectly that way of hanging back and looking at everything, but never too directly in case you get caught staring.

And I'm being all coherent here when what I really want to do is draw hearts around the Tamakis' names and send them embarrassingly gushy emails about how awesome Skim is. It's so honest and so real and so compassionate and so wise and so beautifully drawn and so amazingly written and I was Kim (...not in every way, obviously, but in several very important ways), and I love it to bits and pieces. I want every library in the world to have a copy of this book. I want every queer teenager in the world to have a copy of this book. It's just that good.

Comments

[shantirosa.livejournal.com]

Oh wow, Indian Summer sounds like just the kind of book I've been looking to read. Thanks so much for reviewing it! I would never have heard of it otherwise.

[used_songs]

I teach students who are 12-14 years old and most of them love graphic novels. Do you think Skim would be something that would be accessible to them?

[puritybrown.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. The story is really quite straightforward; the layers are there, but they're not distracting. The GN is kind of dark and does feature a teenage suicide (off-panel, but very important to the story); still, it's nothing a 13-year-old shouldn't be able to handle.

[used_songs]

Thank you for the info! I'll pick up a copy to read this summer and add to my classroom library for next school year.

[sanguinity]

Oh, I love Skim, too! And yes, the narration and art were layered just like that! It was really easy to not notice what they were doing, they did it so well, but there were times that it took my breath away, too.

[kyuuketsukirui.livejournal.com]

Oh, I hadn't heard of Indian Summer. *wishlists* The other two I've had on my wishlist for some time. I'm really interested in Skim especially, and may eventually break down and buy it rather than just hoping for a bookmooch copy.

[lilka.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the recommendation of Skim. That sounds like something I need to get hold of ASAP.