Sisters, Smile's Little Sister (A Review by Jedi Teen)

I recently read Raina Telgemeier’s graphic novel, Smile and loved it. I read Smile three times. I found the companion novel, Sisters, and decided to read it. I read Sisters four times, although I don’t think that I liked it quite as much as I liked Smile.

Sisters tells the true story of a camping trip Raina took with her mom and younger siblings when she was fourteen. The pages with white around the edges of the panels tell the story of the camping trip, while the yellow-edged pages are flashbacks to when Raina was younger. When she was little, she asked for a sister, and her parents had Amara. But as the sisters grew up, Raina found Amara annoying, as all sisters do. When the girls were a little bit older, they wanted a pet, but they couldn’t keep any of their pets alive. Later, Raina and Amara got a baby brother called Will.

Told in Raina’s funny, cartoony yet very good artwork, with lots of humor, just like Smile, Sisters is a very funny book. During the camping trip, Raina is fourteen, Amara nine, and Will six. They are on their way  to a family reunion in Colorado, and their mom is driving from their home in San Francisco. Due to lots of arguments, the family is tired and cranky. But when their parents aren’t getting along, and when Raina and Amara are left alone in a hot car for hours, the sisters need to figure out how to get along. With Raina tuning out the world with her walkman, and Amara asking for the colored pencils Raina brought but hid, the reader is in for some fun.

And this book is simply fun all the way through. I would suggest reading Smile first to get acquainted with Raina and her family, but after Smile, you should go straight to Sisters. This is a wonderful companion to Smile, a book about, art, family, and arguments (and a snake, but I won’t give anything away) and it is a real must-read.

Fall into Telgemeier’s hilarity and full-color artwork, and enjoy Sisters.