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SKIM is gorgeous. Canadian cousins Mariko and Jillian Tamaki are to be praised for such smart, sensitive, sophisticated treatment of unyielding material. Coaxing a suspenseful, surprising, hopeful narrative out of the anti-narrative horror of high school is no easy feat, but coaxing one out that remains true to the recursive slowness of the experience, the smothering isolation of it-- AND leaves you cheering for the heroine in the end-- is all the more impressive.
The Tamakis explore the complex experience of their heroine, Kim Keiko Cameron, by tapping the full potential of graphic novels to offer the reader multiple channels through which to take in information. The verbal line of the novel, with two magnificent exceptions, is the reader's primary guide through the lesbian strand of Kim's experience, while the visual line, with one heartbreaking flashback, is the primary medium through which Kim's Japanese-Canadian heritage is given witness: her mother breaking noodles, her father's thing for Asian women.
Most arresting, visually, is Jillian Tamaki's choice to give Kim the face of a traditional Japanese beauty. Short eyebrow-smudges high on the forehead and long loose hair, along with a small mouth, very rounded cheeks, and a low-placed nose are all markers used to indicate Heian-era female beauty from Tosa's TALE OF GENJI illustrations to Noh Ko-omote masks to traditional Otafuku and Benten imagery. What's canny, and oh-so-true to the tenth grade experience, is that Tamaki takes this marked-as-beautiful face and places it in a context-- an almost entirely white Canadian girls' private high school-- that completely invalidates its beauty.
Among the many riches SKIM has to offer is the chance to witness Kim's coming-of-age as a critic, which is inextricably bound up with her coming into her own as a lesbian. When Kim discovers for herself (and a lame date) precisely what strikes her as inadequate about ROMEO AND JULIET, in a way that both emerges organically from and radically illuminates the whole story we've been reading, it's a moment of breathtaking mastery on Mariko Tamaki's part.
Brava to Mariko and Jillian Tamaki, and here's looking forward to more from each and both of them.
a beautiful , honest and stirring story of youth and transition
5/5
Amazon
B. Lafave
"parisconcert"
(lakeland , fl)
this book is so good at what it sets out to say and show that i hesitate to describe it for fear of underselling it's attributes . the editorial reviews found above as well as some of the excellent customer reviews here might prompt you to aquire this outstanding "graphic novel" . that's the goal . for mature teens and adults .
The Argus (Melbourne,..., Friday 23 March 1934 p 8 ... their division Is a wide range of Australian fiction, including some of the older books, such as ... Australian Books in School THE LITTLE LIBRARY AT PRESTON An Australian library of 350 volumes at the Tyler street State school, Preston, is' Imparting to the children and, through its adult ... 254 words
BOOKS & WRITERS Martians, Robots, Twonkies And All
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The Sunday Herald (Sydney,..., Sunday 22 February 1953 p 13 ... BOOKS Martians, Robots, Twonkies And All KEPERT. For the benefit of their customers vhosc reading follows one line, some of the smaller suburban libraries classify their fiction shelves into ... Science Fiction, to hold the enormous bulk of material coming ol,l in that field. fWER the last 20t ... 1540 words
The Argus (Melbourne,..., Saturday 30 June 1934 p 17 ... for books with double meanings which left them with a kink in theil moial outlook Adult Deaf and ... Austialla or New Zealand W hat Docs Melbourne Re.ul > What docs Melbourne read? Mostly fiction was ... tempered by the fact that In the last few j cars some books likely to live had been published Among ... 756 words