While bright, cartoonish art and lively atmosphere are certainly playful, there's a serious undercurrent of emotional complexity here. In breezy vignettes spanning a school year, the Holms offer glimpses into Sunny's day-to-day, but her fun is frequently interrupted by fears about her brother, which are often triggered by totally unrelated things, like a TV show and an idle joke made by her parents. She's starting middle school, hanging out with her best friend, playing with her baby brother, and making friends with her new next-door neighbor, but her brother's in a military boarding school after getting into trouble with drugs, and she's worried about whether he's okay. JGrades 3-7 Sunny Lewin is back home after spending the summer with Gramps in Florida (Sunny Side Up, 2015), but things aren't quite back to normal. VERDICT A must-have for middle grade graphic novel collections.-Marissa Lieberman, East Orange Public Library, NJĬopyright 2017 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission. The Holms are realistic about Sunny's complicated family situation yet imbue the upbeat narrative with hope. References to 1970s pop culture, such as General Hospital and pet rocks, add authenticity. The exaggerated, cartoonlike artwork strikes the right balance of humor and heart, candidly conveying Sunny's emotions. Fans of Sunny Side Up will adore this sequel, which provides enough background for new readers to jump right in. With some sage advice from Gramps, Sunny learns that she can't always fix everything but that offering her brother love and support may be enough. When Dale returns home for Thanksgiving, he's angry that his family sent him away. She and her best friend plan their Halloween costumes, watch popular TV shows, listen to records, and read comics. Her older brother, Dale, has been sent to boarding school to help with his drug problem, and life isn't the same at home. Review - Frazzled: Everyday Disasters and Impendin.Gr 4-6-It's autumn of 1976, and Sunny has just entered middle school.Review - A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo.Review - Ten Little Zombies: A Love Story.I didn't enjoy this one any more than the first book in the series. It's very sparse, and it comes to a halt so abruptly that I didn't realize for a moment that the book had ended. She meets a new neighbour, learns to play with batons, and laughs at her little brother eating sand. It's just a bunch of random scenes loosely connected by Sunny's feelings about missing her brother. I was hoping for a bit more character development there.)Īside from that, the plot is non-existent. Other than his haircut, Dale is pretty much the same troubled teenager he always was. (I don't think that synopsis is particularly accurate, either. It's implied that he's a delinquent "just because", and while that might be the way it sometimes is in real life, in fiction it just seems like lazy storytelling. The whole time I was reading it, I was thinking about things like secret abuse, or something going on in that family. ![]() ![]() Something nasty has to be going on behind the scenes, because he's so messed up. I know this is middle grade, so you can't get too far into the darker themes, but I really don't get Sunny's brother. Well, that was just as underwhelming as the first book in the series. Instead, she's going to remain Sunny-side up! because she is NOT going let all this confusion get her down. Luckily Sunny's got her best friend and a mysterious new neighbor on her side. But when Dale comes back, she STILL misses him. Sunny misses her brother Dale, who's been sent to boarding school. Not only is the whole middle school thing confusing. But the truth? Sunny is NOT having the best time. When her Gramps calls her from Florida to ask how she's doing, she always tells him she's fine. Summer's over and it's time for Sunny Lewin to enter the strange and unfriendly hallways of.
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