Published : 2021 || Format : print || Location : Colombia ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ What was it about the country that kept everyone hostage to its fantasy? The previous month, on its own soil, an American man went to his job at a plant and gunned down fourteen coworkers, and last spring alone there were four different school shootings. A nation at war with itself, yet people still spoke of it as some kind of paradise.. Thoughts : Infinite Country follows two characters - young Talia, who at the beginning of this book, escapes a girl’s reform school in North Colombia so that she can make her previously booked flight to the US. Before she can do that, she needs to travel many miles to reach her father and get her ticket to the rest of her family. As we follow Talia’s treacherous journey south, we learn about how she ended up in the reform school in the first place and why half her family resides in the US. Infinite Country tells the...
Sisters is being advertised as a sequel to Smile, but you don't have to read Smile to be able to follow Sisters. Since I had already read Smile, Sisters was like a return to a family I enjoyed reading about so much. When Raina was fourteen and her sister, Amara, nine, they go on a road trip along with their six year old brother, Will, and their mother, from California to Colorado. Their road trip turns out to be as eventful as you would expect it to be with three restless kids in the car, two of whom, Raina and Amara, have something to fight about every five minutes. But when they arrive at Colorado, after about a week, their cousins aren't exactly the playmates they hoped to meet.
There is a lot to love in Sisters. For one, the sibling rivalry is something almost anyone will relate to. All that meaningless bickering, the apparent disregard for one another's feelings, the desire to win any argument, and the secret wish to feel accepted by the other is both humorous and endearing to read about. Raina is at an age where makeup and looks are a big deal. Amara is at an age where all that pretty business is a bucket load of crap. They obviously don't see eye to eye.
The narration of the road trip is interspersed with a lot of flashback, starting with toddler Raina's deepest wish to have a baby sister only to be very disappointed by how long it would take the baby Amara to be old enough to play with her and how often the baby bawled. Anti-climax. These flashbacks were quite adorable to read - they did get along a lot better when they were very little, only to have sporadic fights now and then, and later full-blown arguments over everything.
If you haven't read any of Telgemeier's books, you are missing a whole lot. Even newbie comic book readers will enjoy the clear beautiful art, the humor lacing the book, and the sibling wars. Sisters releases on August 26th in the US, but if you don't have your hands on this book yet, there's Smile and Drama to fall in love with.
I received this book for free for review from the publisher, Scholastic Graphix, via NetGalley. Sisters by Raina Telgemeier releases in the US on August 26th.
Comments
Back to the book though. This author got my kid to read. I thank her for that.
books too. The comics are really refreshing and cute, and something even adults can read and relate to, easily.