All's Faire in Middle School
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
Calling all Raina Telgemeier fans! The Newbery Honor-winning author of Roller Girl is back with a heartwarming graphic novel about starting middle school, surviving your embarrassing family, and the Renaissance Faire.
Eleven-year-old Imogene (Impy) has grown up with two parents working at the Renaissance Faire, and she's eager to begin her own training as a squire. First, though, she'll need to prove her bravery. Luckily Impy has just the quest in mind—she'll go to public school after a life of being homeschooled! But it's not easy to act like a noble knight-in-training in middle school. Impy falls in with a group of girls who seem really nice (until they don't) and starts to be embarrassed of her thrift shop apparel, her family's unusual lifestyle, and their small, messy apartment. Impy has always thought of herself as a heroic knight, but when she does something really mean in order to fit in, she begins to wonder whether she might be more of a dragon after all.
As she did in Roller Girl, Victoria Jamieson perfectly—and authentically—captures the bittersweetness of middle school life with humor, warmth, and understanding.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Jamieson doesn't disappoint in her first graphic novel since her Newbery Honor winning Roller Girl. Imogen Vega's parents perform at a Renaissance fair in Florida, immersing the family in a world of jousting and archaic language ("Thou qualling toad-spotted clack-dish!"). Imogen has been homeschooled all her life; now, at 11, she's headed to public school. In her first weeks, she falls victim to the wiles of a mean girl, hurts a girl who might have been a good friend, and throws her younger brother's treasured stuffed animal into the lake. As Imogen undergoes a period of self-enforced solitude, the extended family of the fair community offers unexpected support. Jamieson's sturdy artwork (her figures are decidedly unglamorous, as if to offer regular kids reassurance) and sharp dialogue make it easy to care about her characters. Readers will also appreciate the irreverent humor of the fair's adults: as a treatment for bullies, one recommends "a large quantity of chicken feathers and a few pots of honey." The fair emphasizes adventure and theater, but its unconventional performers teach Imogen about kindness, too. Ages 9 12.
