A Map to the Sun
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- $20.99
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- $20.99
Publisher Description
A Map to the Sun is a gripping YA graphic novel about five principle players in a struggling girls' basketball team.
One summer day, Ren meets Luna at a beachside basketball court and a friendship is born. But when Luna moves to back to Oahu, Ren’s messages to her friend go unanswered.
Years go by. Then Luna returns, hoping to rekindle their friendship. Ren is hesitant. She's dealing with a lot, including family troubles, dropping grades, and the newly formed women's basketball team at their high school.
With Ren’s new friends and Luna all on the basketball team, the lines between their lives on and off the court begin to blur. During their first season, this diverse and endearing group of teens are challenged in ways that make them reevaluate just who and how they trust.
Sloane Leong’s evocative storytelling about the lives of these young women is an ode to the dynamic nature of friendship.
*Lettering by Aditya Bidikar
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In a color palette like a Venice Beach sunset, Leong makes an ensemble of struggling teens shine in this uplifting and visually explosive graphic novel. Ren, who is androgynous and Black, and Luna, a cheery hapa surfer from Oahu, have two things in common: basketball and families splintered by trauma. The new biology teacher, Marisol Weylan, recruits them for the underfunded school's first girls' basketball team, along with Jetta, a rebellious Navajo girl who falls for the advances of the predatory boys' coach; So-Young, a tall Korean kid who hides behind an online avatar; and Ren's bestie Anella, a Black teen who is harassed and underestimated because of her weight. Anella observes, "No one out there is rising for me. Whatever, I can live in the dark," a sentiment that could be true for each girl, until they begin to rise for each other and themselves. Coach Weylan encourages the teammates to identify their own weaknesses so they can support one another with their strengths, and gradually, that's exactly what happens. Leong elevates the classic ragtag-sports-team narrative by giving her characters grit and gravitas, and rendering their world of malls, convenience stores, and slumping apartment buildings in brilliant reds and purples. In multiple panels, she positions a bright orange basketball like the sun: the thing that pulls them into its orbit and illuminates the group in full electric color. Ages 12 up.
