"Smile" Made Us Smile

Not long ago, Jedi Teen and I were looking for some summer reading recommendations. One of our go-to sites for summer reading is Sonlight, which is where we learned about Raina Telgemeier's graphic novel Smile. Published in 2010, it tells the story of Raina's real life dental drama back in the 1980's and early 90s, a drama that began when she fell (as an eleven year old) and knocked out her two front teeth. She ended up having braces and all other kinds of dental work over the next few years, so the story goes into her high school years.

So what did we think of Smile?

Obi Mom: I was handed Smile by Jedi Teen, who had already read it three times by the time she passed it off. I think that's a pretty strong endorsement! Although I have only read a handful of graphic novels before, I do enjoy the story-telling technique, and Raina Telgemeier's illustrations were terrific.

It's been a long time since I've had my own dental dramas, but oh my goodness, did this book bring the experiences of braces back to me....vividly! I never actually had the kind of drama Raina did -- no falls or knocked out teeth. I simply had an overbite that took a long time to correct. Raina's well-told experiences brought back all the feelings of brace tightening, head-gear wearing, rubber-band snapping, food stuck in wires...I hadn't thought about some of these things in years!

Jedi Teen: The reason I read this book three times was because I had a bad cold and I felt miserable and didn't want to read anything too challenging. I really enjoyed the book. The first time I read it I was in the car running errands. Later that evening, I was feeling really bad and I didn't feel like doing anything but lying there and reading and I wanted to read Smile again! The next day I was still feeling bad, so I stayed home from church and watched Frozen. When the movie was finished, I got out Smile and started again! By the time my parents came home, I was already well into the story. I finished it again that afternoon.

I also liked Raina's artwork. She is good at drawing backgrounds and putting details into her drawing. She grew up in San Francisco and survived the earthquake in 1989 when she was in 7th grade. She went to school with some other girls who turned out to not be very nice in the end. They called her a "vampire" because her teeth were pushed up (when they were trying to fix them at first). At the end of the book, Raina made new friends.

After a while, the orthodontist decided to take out her front teeth, which were pushed up, and use a full set of braces to try to bring the other teeth into the middle. At the end of her treatment, they added stuff to Raina's new front teeth to make them look normal. In the picture in the back of the book, Raina looks perfectly normal!

Obi Mom: I think a lot of us can remember feeling like we didn't fit in for some reason when we were Raina's age. In her case, a lot of that had to do with her teeth, but I think the adult author (looking back on her middle school and high school years) captures a lot of the feelings that all kids have at that stage. Raina sometimes feels awkward and like she's either growing too fast or too slowly. It's good for me, as the mom of Jedi Teen, to remember that season of life and how hard it can feel sometimes!

Jedi Teen: I really connected with Raina's characters, and even though I don't have braces, I can understand how painful that can be! I remember having a lot of cavities when I was little, and even though I have gotten better about it recently, I never like to go to the dentist. I guess most of us don't!

Raina told her story with a lot of humor, and Smile made me laugh....and smile!

Jedi Teen's "First Impressions" of Pride and Prejudice

Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice has long been one of my favorite novels. Recently, Jedi Teen enjoyed it for the first time. We read it out loud in the evenings (which was the first time that Yodad -- Jedi Teen's dad -- had ever heard the book too).

For our first joint review, we thought we'd have a conversation about the book.

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Obi Mom: Well, Jedi Teen, what did you think of Pride and Prejudice?

Jedi Teen: It caused me great felicity!

Obi Mom: What a great word!

Jedi Teen: The book was a great vocabulary builder.

OM: Were there any other words you particularly noticed or liked?

JT: She kept using the words "pride" and "prejudice."

OM: Kind of fitting, huh? Who in the book did you think was proud? And who was prejudiced?

JT: Hmm, that's tricky. There were lots of misunderstandings. At the beginning, Mr. Darcy was proud, because he didn't want to dance with Lizzie.

OM: He kind of insulted her, in fact. At the beginning, did you think he was going to be the hero?

JT: From things I'd heard, I had a feeling he was important. But if I didn't know, I probably wouldn't have thought so.

OM: Austen is really good at what's called "misdirection." She sometimes tries to fool you by letting you believe that characters are good when they're bad, or bad when they're good.

JT: Like Wickham!

OM: Right. At first, Wickham seems like a pretty good guy. And part of the reason we're not sure about Mr. Darcy is that we sympathize with Elizabeth, and she believes the lies that Wickham tells about Darcy. What did you think of Wickham at first?

JT: I really wasn't sure if he was trustworthy or not.

OM: Did it surprise you when he ran off with Lydia?

JT: Yes! I didn't think he'd do that.

OM: Who in the story was prejudiced? Do you think that Lizzie was kind of prejudiced?

JT: Yes, because when Wickham tells her things about Darcy, she believes them even though they aren't true. She doesn't want to believe good things about Darcy because he didn't ask her to dance.

OM: Right. She decides right off the bat that he's an insufferable bore and thinks he's better than other people. But it turns out that Darcy is somewhat insecure, especially in new situations. Even though he is handsome and rich, he doesn't always feel comfortable with people he doesn't know, especially when they are from different worlds or situations. So in some ways, he's prejudiced too. What about the other characters? Which ones did you especially like?

JT:  I liked Jane.

OM: She and Lizzie are great sisters. Jane Austen and her sister Cassandra were really close, and I think maybe that's why she loved to write about sisters. Although not all of Lizzie's sisters are shining examples of character!

JT: Like Lydia! I think her mother influences her.

OM: Yes, and Mrs. Bennet is not the wisest of women. Although I think Austen wrote her character in some ways to be humorous. She really is a very funny writer. Were there other characters that struck you as funny?

JT: I think Mr. Collins is funny sometimes.

OM: He sure does love to talk. And talk. And talk....

JT: SPOILER! I liked it that people got married in the end. I guess that's not too much of a spoiler.

OM: Probably not. Most people who have heard of Austen have probably heard that she likes to marry off her characters in the end.

JT: Like a Shakespeare comedy.

OM: Yep! I like that Austen writes about real people who sometimes make real mistakes. They make wrong judgments and they sometimes do things that aren't terribly wise. But she also gives us hope that in the end, people who really love each other can find ways to tell each other that and live happily ever after.

JT: The end! :)

Welcome to Seeing Stars!

When my daughter Sarah and I decided that we wanted to begin a mother-daughter review blog together, we spent a while trying to come up with just the right name. We had a lot of laughs over some of our sillier choices, but at the end of our brainstorming we arrived at "Seeing Stars."

Why Seeing Stars? Well, we knew that we would be reviewing books and movies we love, and that got us thinking about stories we especially love. Right now Sarah (hereafter known as "Jedi Teen") is particularly into Star Wars (especially the original trilogy, films 4-6). So we knew we'd like to get Stars into the title. Then we thought of some of the books we both love, including Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time and all the other books in that trilogy/quartet. Remember the star watching rock?

Seeing Stars also felt like a grand name because when we really, truly love a story, it can dazzle us. It also made us think of actually looking for stars in the sky and tracing the beautiful patterns of constellations. Hopefully we will point out many beautiful things in the stories we love within the reviews we post here. Finally, since we also plan to review movies, Seeing Stars seemed appropriate because when you watch a film, you're spending time with "movie stars"!

Jedi Teen is turning 13 this month. And I, her mother (hereafter known as Obi Mom) am 47. I've been a book and movie reviewer since Jedi Teen was a Jedi infant. And now she has been bitten by the review bug too. I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree!