Dome’Loki recommend Ghost by Raina Telgemeier. But since I had already read that one I am taking Drama as my Cannonballer Says! The line in the review, “While I didn’t connect to this story the way I did Smile and Drama…” got me thinking about Drama. I did connect with Telgemeier in Smile. Though I never had braces as a child (but did just do the Invisalign braces as an adult) much of her adventures of getting through life resonated sharply. And I connected with Sisters as well. It […]
Tugs at your heart
Ghosts is the most recently published of Raina Telgemeier’s graphic novels and also the most fantastical. Since I had read and reviewed her other three books earlier this year, it seemed only appropriate to do this one as well. While I didn’t connect to this story the way I did Smile and Drama, I did fall for the characters and the story of family, identity, and death. Cat’s younger sister, Maya, was born with cystic fibrosis, it affects her lungs and digestive system and there is no cure. The […]
The Baby-Sitters Club in Graphic Novel
I do not remember reading the original Babysitters Club by Ann Martin. I was aware of them (my sister had the series) but it was never on my reading pile. I would later read Martin and enjoy her work immensely. Therefore, I was excited to see that Raina Telgemeier had adapted the Babysitters Club into a graphic novel series. Unfortunately, the first one I read seemed dated. It was very much still in the voice of the original printing date. It was not unpleasant, but […]
Drama, on and off stage, and getting knickers in a twist in real life
Raina Telgemeier is amazing and I wish she had been writing when I was a tween. As it is, I’m happy to be able to give these books to my daughters and enjoy the nostalgia they bring me. Her first two graphic novels are autobiographical, Smile and Sisters. This time around she drew from her life experiences of middle school and doing theater to create an original work titled Drama, and it has lived up to it’s name. In 2015 Drama had the honor of being on the “Most frequently […]
The awkwardness of middle school and dental drama
My previous review was for Sisters a biographical graphic novel about the relationship between the author, Raina Telgemeier, and her younger sister Amara. Before she wrote Sisters, Raina chronicled the difficult and awkward time of middle school through the transition to high school in Smile. Poor Raina, at a time when you can feel your most self conscious she had an extra complication of braces and dental work on a level I had never heard of before. At eleven years old an unfortunate accident knocked out one of Raina’s top […]
A peak into a possible life
Raina Telgemeier took her childhood struggles with her sister and adapted them into this funny, and at times touching, graphic novel about the joys and angst of sisterhood. I have two sisters, however with a twelve year age difference between my first sister and myself, and a fourteen year age difference (plus the complexities of autism) between me and my second sister, with the added complication that I moved away from home when they were seven and five respectively, I’ve never had what I consider […]





