The Chronicles of Deltovia

July 15, 2022
Misha predicts that the masterpiece she and her best friends have begun creating will lead to fame and fortune. The young collaborators share a notebook (square-ruled and occasionally eraser-smudged) in which their illustrated novel takes shape interspersed with Misha's journal-like account of middle school moments. The three heroes of their work, The Chronicles of Deltovia, are very like their creators. Misha, a bit impulsive, relies on her feelings much of the time and longs to be seen as complex, brave, sad, and deep (and famous in the future). June (the most sophisticated artist of the three) is focused, detail-oriented, and needs to understand the world logically. Athletic Ollie plays an untroubled cheerleading role, her infrequent additions to the work in progress amusingly detached. While the fantasy tale they create proceeds by fits and starts, propelled by Misha and clarified by June, the trio navigate the school year, participate in an overnight field trip at the science museum, and uncover, somewhat accidentally, the ongoing embezzlement of school funds. Misha's, June's, and Ollie's voices are pitch-perfect and very funny, combining sincerity with fledgling self-awareness and accompanied by hilarious cartoon art in three distinct styles. The result is a warmhearted look at friendship and the pleasures and pitfalls of collaboration, literary and otherwise. Misha and Ollie read White; June appears Black. Amusing and insightful. (Illustrated fiction. 9-13)

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August 1, 2022
Jaimes (Nancy: A Comic Collection) employs three distinct alternating perspectives to craft a slyly funny graphic novel in which best friends Misha, June, and Ollie build a fictional world—and navigate middle school’s ups and downs—via a shared notebook. Misha, a white daydreamer who describes herself as “mysterious,” is absolutely certain that the “DEEP and artistic” fantasy novel she’s writing with her friends is going to make them famous someday (“I’m fully expecting to get a sequel, a movie, a TV show spin-off of the movie”). Alongside “intense” rule-abiding June, who is Black, and sporty, white-cued Ollie, they pass around their notebook, Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants–style, to depict both the imaginary happenings of Deltovia, in which they fight evil, and myriad real-life conflicts, which include friendship upsets and field trips gone wrong. Jaimes’s crisp b&w ink illustrations keenly embody the trio’s varying narrative styles, further detailing their differences and providing brief glimpses into their lives beyond the shared tome. The girls’ interpersonal conflicts bleed into their exaggerated cartoons and extravagant Deltovian worldbuilding, adding depth to their good-humored fictitious adventure. Ages 9–13.

August 1, 2022
Grades 3-5 A shared notebook records rather more than the fantasy adventure that three middle--schoolers set out to compose in it. Bits of narrative, printed in different typefaces on graph paper, are almost from the start interspersed with the three girls' thinly veiled personal notes and observations, diaristic entries, drawings, and scrapbooked items, offering insights into each would-be author while unconsciously dropping clues related to school funds gone mysteriously missing. Misha, who suffers from both burning literary ambitions and attention issues when it comes to schoolwork, provides most of the drama (and wordage), but readers will find her cowriter June, by far the best artist, distracted by anxieties over Misha's antics. Sports-obsessed Ollie, who is all about pep talks and positive reinforcement but really doesn't "get" storytelling or character development, is equally appealing. And if the Deltovia plotline doesn't get very far, at least in this opener, by the end the mystery is solved, and the trio is poised for summer exploits. A natural for fans of Kate Klise's Regarding series and like document-based romps.

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