Review: Click by Kayla Miller

Click is a graphic novel about a popular girl who is trying to find her place. Olive is a floater. She has lots of friends--there is the kids from her neighbourhood, the kids she sits with at lunch, the kids she hangs out with at recess. Making friends has never been a problem--Olive clicks with everyone. Then, one day at school, the teacher announces that her grade is going to be taking part in a variety show. All of the other kids are dividing themselves into groups and they're planning their acts for the show ... acts that don't include Olive. Suddenly Olive has no one to talk to, or hang out with anymore.

Until she finds, and implements, a clever solution.

This was a fun read about friendship. It was interesting to read a story of changing friendships that was from the perspective of a kid who has lots of friends and has never had trouble fitting in before--usually these stories focus on shy, sensitive kids and, consequently, we can forget that other types of kids, even the most popular and self-assured ones, can find themselves in situations where they question how they fit in or if their friendship groups are changing. It's a reminder that all types of personalities and stories are valid. Kayla Miller's writing and illustrations are easy to follow, and although the story is aimed at pre-teens it is told in such a way that it can be enjoyed by grown up readers as well. On a more personal note, I found Olive's story very relatable--a very similar thing happened to me in primary school and just like Olive, I found myself hosting the show. 

Overall Click is an excellent read, and not only for kids. Apparently it has been so well received that not only are there several sequels, but a spin-off series as well. I hope to be able to read these soon.

Recommended.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Peppermint Patty: I Cried and Cried and Cried

Image
Unrequited love is a common theme in the Peanuts Comics and is one that I have previously explored on this blog. We know that Lucy loves Schroeder, Sally loves Linus and Charlie Brown has a crush on the unseen, unnamed and utterly unattainable Little Redhaired Girl. But perhaps the saddest unrequited love stories from the comic is that which ran in late June 1972. It was the series of strips where the usually self-confident Peppermint Patty came face-to-face with the Little Redhaired Girl with the intention of thumping her and then something surprising happened: Here we have a usually self-confident girl, who is funny, unashamedly herself and talented at sports reduced to tears by the realisation of who she is not and never can be. I really feel for her in this series of comic strips. She knows that Charlie Brown can never love her, when he is so hung up over a girl who represents a supposedly ideal feminine beauty. Fortunately Linus, the most spiritual member of the Pean
Read more

Charlie Brown, Lucy Van Pelt and the Football

Image
One of the longest, and arguably, most infuriating, running gags in Charles Schulz's otherwise brilliant Peanuts comic strip, is where Lucy promises to hold a football for Charlie Brown and then pulls it away at the last minute, causing Charlie Brown to fall flat on his back. A typical strip looks like this: Source: Go Comics The gag is one of the darker themes in the strip. It works on the concept that every year, Lucy promises to hold a football for Charlie Brown. Every year, Charlie Brown is initially filled with doubt but is eventually pushed on by a kind of optimism that perhaps, this time, Lucy might just let him kick it after all. As a metaphor for life, it is pretty simple. It talks of the moments when we choose to put our trust in people who have let us down only to be taken by surprise when they let us down, again. Lucy is, arguably, one of the crueller characters in the comic. Described as crabby by the other characters, she is often selfish, takes delight in wilfully hu
Read more

Phrases and Idioms: Tickets on Himself

To have tickets on himself: (Australian slang.) To be conceited or vain. To have an overinflated opinion of oneself.  He's got tickets on himself if he thinks that any woman would fall for that. I was thinking about this particular bit of Australian slang the other day, after my boss said, "He's got tickets on himself," to describe the actions of a particular individual. At the time, I smiled, knowing exactly what the boss meant. Later on, I started to ponder on this unusual phrase and wondered where it might have come from. A search on google helped me find the definition, but that was about all. There are no references to it being used in pop culture or literature (if you find one, let me know,) and at the time of writing this post, Tickets on Himself was not listed on Urban Dictionary. (I tried to add it, but the fuckers rejected my definition. They probably think I have tickets on myself or something for trying to add a relatively common piece of A
Read more