More and more we see a huge gap between what you expect to see in graphic novels and the actual content. These bright colorful books are a favorite for young kids, but authors and publishers want to be able to fill it with whatever content they want. Think we might be over-exaggerating? Just take a look at the cover image, ask yourself honestly who will be grabbing this book to read it and then check out this line that appears late in this book: “Some of the girls at school brag about ‘experimenting’ sexually or with drugs”. This is joined by a peppering of “small” things that get slipped in, like a song reference titled “I woke up in a car”.

We will share more of what we saw below to help you get a picture of this, but please realize this is a really big deal.

The other MOST CONCERNING aspects:

There is an ongoing theme in the book where Alyssa is “crushing” on a boy she knows from camp. This comes up a lot. What moves this up the list is when Alyssa randomly mentions that this boy has pink hair and “wears skirts if he feels like it”. Later Alyssa complains, “I certainly can’t check out cute guys if Julio chaperones”. A scene shows her wearing pants that say “Angel” across the rear end, to which boys start joking, with one saying, “I’ll be the devil then”.

A friend (described as a “goody-two-shoes’) and loving ghosts, witches and tarot cards. Sadly this dark content appears several times, with dangerous comments like when this girl yells out “I’ll do tarot cards” in the same way a girl may offer to paint nails or some other fun activity. Later in the book this is actually shown happening with the girls.

Movies referenced: Sweet Home Alabama, Real Women Have Curves, 8 Mile, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, The Ring… the last of which is a horror movie and likely none are appropriate for the very young children who primarily read graphic novels.

The aftermath of divorce are shown to young readers in a positive light, instead of the hurt and brokenness that we know really comes from this. After a big, fun wedding with dad marrying his girlfriend we read comments like “If this is what having a stepfamily feels like, it’s pretty good” and “A bigger, better family now”.

Alyssa rolls her eyes at her dad, with illustrations saying, “Blah Blah Blah”. She calls this “Dad’s annoying lecture”. This extremely disrespectful behavior receives no consequences and no sense it is even wrong.

A friend says, “As soon as I graduate, I am getting as far away from my parents as possible”.

Alyssa and her friends sneak out of a hotel window while on a school trip. Never shown as wrong, in fact the girls are shown giggling the whole time.

Mom asks Alyssa why her clothes need to be “skin tight”. The illustration shows longer, more modest shorts with a caption saying, “No thank you” and short, revealing shorts with a caption saying, “yes, please”. Book then seems to imply she will borrow clothes she isn’t supposed to have once she gets to school.

In front of giant Christmas ornament balls, a teacher instructs them to get a picture, which the author has one of the girls say, “I thought she said, “take a picture with Richard’s balls”

We often see a bit of hand-waving towards religion without any real Christian substance. This book certainly falls into that category. In “religion class”, because she had “already learned all that material”, Sister Francis calls her “Bible Girl” which Alyssa calls a “close call to social disaster”. Her drawing has a note “Do angels exist?”.

We should also mention that this one is a bit heavy. The book falls in a 9/11 backdrop. Dad has liver disease. Those aspects bring more weight than you will likely expect given the format. This really increases once her father passes. This actually goes on for a relatively long stretch and during this time she is shown in a depression type state. Sadly, when she enters church she thinks about her father’s prayers and thinks, “Would it even matter if I added to them? What is the point now?”. Sadly, despite there being some of the setting and memory of dad in church, there is no focus on Heaven or on our loving God. This is emphasized as we see her saying the unthinkable, “Where is he now?”, guessing, “Somewhere between outer space and the rest of the universe?” and later in what is supposed to be the happy resolution we see the misguided statement “For a moment, I thought that if Heaven does exist, or something like it, then Dad is always watching me” and “It’s like I invite my dad’s spirit anywhere”. The acknowledgements even reference, “wherever you are in the universe”. To really drive this home, under her list of “super annoying things” she lists people saying “Everything happens for a reason” and “God won’t give you more than you can handle” as well as “He’s in a better place now”. Honestly, this section is hard to get through…again, especially given the audience. We see depressed thoughts illustrated spanning many pages. This is not the resource to help your children learn to wrestle with loss (the author who produced all of this gives her book, movie and song recommendations to kids at the end).

Additional concerning items

The opening drawing shows an illustration of J Lo, a strapless bra and “earrings mom gave me to wear to dad’s wedding”.

Without any explanation or history, we see Alyssa’s dad and his “girlfriend”. Later we find out this girlfriend has moved in before marriage and that dad has been married 3 separate times.

There are quite a few references to keeping a diary.

Food is flippantly called “Heaven”

A story is recalled of her dad getting a liquor license and selling beer. A sandwich has “vodka sauce”

A sleepover activity has everyone list what they were in their “past life”

The following statement is made: “Oh my god… she’s actually so boring”.

The following terms are used: “OMG”, barfing.

The following references are made: Gilmore Girls, Death Cab for Cutie, Mark Anthony, Shakira