Blog Seven: Smile

I wanted to start with a short review of the book Smile by Raina Telgemeier. Smile is a very cute and relatable book about a middle school girl named Raina and her journey through braces, boys, and bad friends as she enters into high school. One thing that really stood out to me about this book was how relatable it was. I remember the journey through braces, wires, and head gear. Her experience with boys in middle school was also so relatable. All the emotions that went along with that age period are spot on. I feel that this book is so relatable because it is a true story about the author’s life. This book was in the form of a graphic novel, which I had never read before. I really enjoyed it because all the pictures really helped me to visualize the characters and better showed the emotions that were involved. The pictures also made the book much more relatable. I would really recommend this book to children around sixth or seventh grade to show them that they will get through the rough times and be happy in the end just like Raina.

Reading this book was so different than any other book I have read. I have not read any book like this. The closest book I could compare it to is a chapter book that has a few pictures. This book was different in that is would not have been complete without the pictures or without the text. The pictures and text together made the book great and understandable. I could see the main characters style and personality through the pictures that would not have been as evident with just the words.

I felt that I read much faster and was more interested in this book than a generic chapter book. There was not that much text so I could spend time looking at the pictures to get a better overall grasp of the scenes. The colors were so vibrant and made the text fun to read. This would be great to integrate into any elementary school classroom. I could use it by having students write and draw scenes from their lives or school year. This book could also be a tool for fifth or sixth graders to prepare them for transitioning into middle school and letting them know that they will be ok. This was overall a very cute book!