Stepping Stones
(A Graphic Novel)
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5.0 • 2 Ratings
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • The first book in an acclaimed graphic novel series inspired by the author’s own childhood tells an amazing story of unlikely friends, sisters, and home.
“This candid, heartwarming look at a child grappling with major changes will resonate with fans of Raina Telgemeier and Svetlana Chmakova and anyone trying to find their place.”—School Library Journal, starred review
A Graphic Novels and Comics Round Table (GNCRT) Outstanding Comics Award Honor for Best Children's Series
Jen did not want to leave the city. She did not want to move to a farm with her mom and her mom's new boyfriend, Walter. She did not want to leave her friends and her dad.
Most of all, Jen did not want to get new "sisters," Andy and Reese.
As if learning new chores on Peapod Farm wasn't hard enough, having to deal with perfect-at-everything Andy might be the last straw for Jen. Besides cleaning the chicken coop, trying to keep up with the customers at the local farmers' market, and missing her old life, Jen has to deal with her own insecurities about this new family . . . and where she fits in.
Look for the whole Peapod Farm series
STEPPING STONES • APPLE CRUSH • SUGAR SHACK
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Knisley's autobiographical comics chops are on full display in her first graphic novel for kids, a fictionalized telling of her childhood experiences. When Jen moves to the country with her mother after her parents' divorce, she is less than thrilled to trade urban comic book shops and Chinese takeout for chicken coop related chores and her mother's disagreeable new boyfriend, Walter. Resentment deepens as Jen helps her mom at the farmers market left alone to handle sales though math isn't her strong suit and Walter's two daughters, Andy and Reese, begin arriving each weekend to share her room. Missing her old life and feeling unfavorably compared to know-it-all Andy, Jen tries to adjust, finding expression and self-worth in her art as she comes to love her "part-time sisters" and navigates Walter's seeming inability to treat her as equal to them. With specificity that lends itself to universality, Knisley balances humor and deeply felt emotion to capture the particular unfairness of being a child at the mercy of parental decisions. Art centers around the gentle realism of Knisley's established style, augmented with pencil drawings in the young protagonist's developing hand. Age 8 12.
