I’ve been speeding through graphic novels lately. I’m personally enjoying things from BOOM and the Graphix imprint of Scholastic. I guess I never really got over my book fair stage. I do still love a cute eraser and kitty poster as well. The book I just finished was The New Girl by Cassandara Calin.
The book tells the story of a young Romanian girl who moves to Canada with her family. I believe it is based somewhat on the author’s younger years. The New Girl focuses on Lia as she settles into a school where she doesn’t know the language and is homesick for her friends.
It follows her throughout the fall and winter of her first year there as she learns French and starts to become friends with her class and starts drawing for a magazine the school has going. This graphic novel will be easily relatable to the tween/teen set, with issues of school, crushes and family.
I cannot tell though if this is the first book or part of a series. Amazon says this is the only book in the series but it’s definitely set up for a second volume with a potenial crush for Lia, and someone with a crush on her. My thought are that the company is probably seeing how well this book will do before they produce another.
It was a quick and light read, the one thing I wanted to learn more about though was if Lia has other health issues. Her heavy periods are brought up throughout the piece and that issue doesn’t receive a resolution within the book.
I’d read a second volume just to hear more about that, mostly because I’ve had the same symptoms at certain points in my life and would love to see what is ailing the character. I’d also come back for the drama they set up with the crushes that Lia is caught between.
Finally the thing I really enjoyed about this book is the way they portray learning a new language. The author makes the choice to have Lia speaking in a mix of ‘broken’ English and French. I like how Lia and her friends are shown progressing with their own language learning throughout the piece. Her friends all from different places around the world and are part of an immersion classroom.
I’d give this piece 4 stars, it was good for what I was expecting and kept me interested throughout. I’d like to see another volume and will keep an eye out for this author.
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