"'Skim—a winner of a 2008 New York Times Best Illustrated Children’s Books Award—is a convincing chronicle of a teenage outsider.... It’s a story that deepens with successive rereadings.' —Elizabeth Spire, New York Times Sunday Book Review
This graphic novel was praised almost universally in reviews, and but has still remained somewhat under the radar of the public.
Both the story and the drawing style are unusual and lovely. It's a story set in the emotional world of a young schoolgirl. Like many bildungsromans, it is full of yearning and searching, but instead of being angsty or funny, it is poetic and kaleidoscopic, a snowglobe-like window into her changing world. I haven't seen anything else quite like it, and I've read a lot of graphic novels and comics.
Fans of Persepolis, Fun Home, or Maus would particularly appreciate it."
"Of the many wonderful young adult novels I’ve read that explore what high school is like for teenagers, this one is probably the most beautiful. And I’m not just talking about the gorgeous illustrations.
The more times I reread this book, the more I appreciate its delicate, woven construction and raw, genuine depth. And though I do wish I could have read it when I was in 10th grade, it has a resonance that’s impossible to outgrow. We all need the occasional reminder that being sixteen is really, really hard. "
Publisher Groundwood Books
Publication Date 2010-02-23
Section New Titles - Paperback / Children's/Teen Graphic Novels / Graphic Novels / All Staff Suggestions / Suggestions for Kids / Fiction Suggestions / Archived Staff Suggestions / Jen C. / Serena L.
Format Paperback
ISBN 9780888999641
"Skim" is Kimberly Keiko Cameron, a not-slim, would-be Wiccan goth who goes to a private girls' school in the early '90s. When her classmate Katie Matthews is dumped by her boyfriend, who then kills himself — possibly because he's (maybe) gay — the entire school goes into mourning overdrive. It's a weird time to fall in love, but that's what happens to Skim when she starts meeting secretly with her neo-hippie English teacher, Ms. Archer. But then Ms. Archer abruptly leaves the school, and Skim has to cope with her confusion and isolation while her best friend, Lisa, tries to pull her into "real" life by setting up a hilarious double-date for the school's semi formal. Suicide, depression, love, homosexuality, crushes, cliques of popular, manipulative peers — the whole gamut of teen life is explored in this poignant glimpse into the heartache of being 16.
