El Deafo by Cece Bell, 2014

Click to view
on Goodreads 

Starting at a new school is scary, even more so with a giant hearing aid strapped to your chest! At her old school, everyone in Cece's class was deaf. Here she is different. She is sure the kids are staring at the Phonic Ear, the powerful aid that will help her hear her teacher. Too bad it also seems certain to repel potential friends.
Then Cece makes a startling discovery. With the Phonic Ear she can hear her teacher not just in the classroom, but anywhere her teacher is in school--in the hallway...in the teacher's lounge...in the bathroom! This is power. Maybe even superpower! Cece is on her way to becoming El Deafo, Listener for All. But the funny thing about being a superhero is that it's just another way of feeling different... and lonely. Can Cece channel her powers into finding the thing she wants most, a true friend?
This funny perceptive graphic novel memoir about growing up hearing impaired is also an unforgettable book about growing up, and all the super and super embarrassing moments along the way.

(233 pages)

I don't really read comic books very often (actually, I never read comic books), but I saw so many great reviews of El Deafo that I just had to check it out. And I'm very glad I did!

This is quite the autobiography. Cece perfectly depicts the thought processes of little girls, complete with one-dimensional classmates/friends and the little embarrassments that turn into major catastrophes when you're young. The comic-book format was perfect for telling this story, and I loved the way she depicted everyone as bunnies instead of as humans, which basically lets readers fill in whatever human faces they want for the characters. Instead of making it explicitly a story about only her own childhood, Cece lets the reader choose what the characters look like (and maybe who they resemble in the reader's own life).

Speaking of that, some of Cece's experiences mirror my own - especially in the beginning, when she moves away from her childhood home. Whether you're hearing or not, it's hard to leave your friends behind, and I can totally relate to the loneliness of leaving behind everything that is familiar to you. Other parts of Cece's story are less similar to my own childhood (in large part just because I didn't grow up attending school - there's a lot less drama when your only classmates are your three younger siblings), but they still rang true as the sort of trouble that kids have growing up. Cece (the author) perfectly nails the one-dimensional way children see the world.

I'd like to think that I could take stories from my childhood, write them in comic-book form, and win a Newberry, but I have a feeling it wouldn't really be that simple. Just for starters, I can't draw - at all - so I wouldn't be able to write the comic book in the first place. Technicalities aside, though, it takes a certain type of extreme talent to so perfectly relay the experiences and attitudes of childhood without a) sugar-coating things or b) making the MC seem like a total brat. Bell does a marvelous job straddling this line with El Deafo, and I'm glad I was able to spend a few hours with the result.

Princess Academy by Shannon Hale, 2007

Click to view
on Goodreads

Miri lives on a mountain where, for generations, her ancestors have quarried stone and lived a simple life. Then word comes that the king's priests have divined her small village the home of the future princess. In a year's time, the prince himself will come and choose his bride from among the girls of the village. The king's ministers set up an academy on the mountain, and every teenage girl must attend and learn how to become a princess.
Miri soon finds herself confronted with a harsh academy mistress, bitter competition among the girls, and her own conflicting desires to be chosen and win the heart of her childhood best friend. But when bandits seek out the academy to kidnap the future princess, Miri must rally the girls together and use a power unique to the mountain dwellers to save herself and her classmates.
(314 pages)

I'm in a reviewing slump, because I haven't read anything I cared enough about to review lately. So what do I do when I need to have a review up in two days? I turn to my old favorites and choose one I know like the back of my hand. I haven't read Princess Academy in a long time, but it really doesn't matter because I've read it so many times that I could review it in my sleep. I won't, though - I'm wide awake right now, I promise!

Why do I love Princess Academy so much? Part of it comes from exposure, I guess. I read it for the first time when I was seven, and fell in love with just about everything about it: the mountain, the "magic," the ending. The main reason I love Princess Academy, though, isn't just exposure to it at an early age - it's the story, and the characters, and the setting, and just about everything else. 

I love Miri for her sense of humor, her intelligence, her strength . . . and her weakness. Miri feels inferior to the other villagers because she is small and physically weak, and her father won't let her work in the stone quarry with the majority of her neighbors. Growing up on the outskirts of the quarry, spending her days with the young, the old, and the physically handicapped who can't work in the quarry, Miri has developed a sort of inferiority complex. She hides her insecurities and her loneliness by cracking jokes and teasing others, hiding herself so completely behind a facade of lightheartedness and confidence that no one suspects how unsure of herself Miri really is. I love watching Miri throughout the book as she learns not only how to read and write (though those are obviously important too!), but also how to believe in herself and to positively affect the people around her.

I also love the other characters. Peder, Britta, Esa, Frid, Knut, Lars, even Olana - they all have unique personalities, unique motives for acting the way they do, unique reactions to the formation of the Academy. Britta is my personal favorite because she begins as a minor character but becomes more and more prominent as the book goes on. Her story deserves a novel all to itself! I also love Peder for the whole childhood frienship/loyalty thing between him and Miri, and I love Katar for what makes her so desperate to win the prince's heart. Steffan is one of my favorite characters because he's more than just a cartoon-prince only good for acting as the author's trump card in the princess competition (like, "I want XYZ to marry the prince, so Steffan picks her even though that wouldn't make an sense!").

This review is becoming too long, so I'm just going to stop. I could keep going, though, listing off every single character in the book and why I love them. I could also talk about the Heidi-esque setting, and the awesome side-plot about linder (which is the stone they quarry), and the theme of familial love that runs strong through the veins of Princess Academy. Instead I'll simply summarize the rest of my review like this: It's one of my favorite books. Ever. And you need to read it.

And if you already have read it? Read it again. Then (though this is less urgent) read the sequels - here's a link to my review of the third book in the series, The Forgotten Sisters.