Another graphic novel memoir. This one has a very clear focus: sibling relationships and rivalry. Older sister is of course, jealous of her baby brother as a new arrival. When he gets older she finds out what fun it is to play together- and to play tricks on him. Get him into trouble. Come up with new, creative ways to take risks, and carry the game as far as she can, until someone gets hurt. Which was usually her younger brother, though some neighborhood kids got into frays as well. Reminds me a lot of my own childhood, from the taunting of sisters who repeated every word you said, to finding new thrilling ways to catapult yourself onto couch cushions. Sometimes the older sister in this story carries her pranks a bit too far, as when she tricks her little brother into eating cat kibble, or actually provokes the cat into scratching someone. When her brother breaks a tooth in a fall, remorse finally hits her hard, compounded by her brother’s own easy forgiveness. She determines to become a better person, following the example of – who else, really- her younger brother. I wasn’t really keen on the illustration style in this book, but the story really got to me. It’s such an honest depiction of siblings. The arc of character development is very clear and so good to see how with a bit of effort, people can change. And the author was honest about the root of some of her struggles- she could not recognize faces, had difficulty understanding meaning when people used idioms or non-lieteral phrases it made me wonder if perhaps she was a bit on the autism spectrum? or just had face blindness (which Oliver Sacks had, I only recently learned that from his memoir).
Borrowed from the public library.
Victorian era children’s books. The ones shown here are all about “brave female characters” and “high-spirited girls.” It’s amusing to read this blurb I found about one of the authors, Angela Brazil, online. She was
