The Babysitters Club: Kristy’s Great Idea
by Ann M. Martin and Raina Telgemeier
Review by Angela DeMott
It took me a chapter or two to get used to the graphic novel format, but once I trained my eye to follow the sequences of the drawings and stopped roaming the page, I really enjoyed this version of the BSC. I love the details Raina Telgemeier puts into her artwork – her faces are so expressive!
Though under 200 pages, Telgemeier manages to pack in the important themes about family and friendship that make the original BSC books so popular with mid-grade readers. The best part of the graphic novel format is that the illustrations and limited dialogue allow the reader to infer much more about the characters’ relationships and feelings than is possible in the original novels. It lends a sophistication and maturity to an otherwise less impacting story. I think this format is a perfect way to celebrate and modernize the BSC stories. My reading list includes the others in this series.
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About the reviewer: Angela’s addiction to reading must have started sometime around second grade when she finished my first chapter book, Bruce Coville’s The Ghost in the Big Brass Bed. She’s been reading classics, literary fiction, mysteries, children’s lit, narrative nonfiction, and much more ever since. She graduated from Southern Virginia University with a B.A. in English and has an M.A. in Publishing from Rosemont College. She’s currently a web writing manager at Hibu, a digital marketing company.
