"Skim" by Mariko Tamaki

(http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/awards/canadian_lit_prize_snubs_graphic_novels_graphic_artist_100518.asp)

"Skim" is a great YA graphic novel. This book targets some of the main issues that young teens have to deal with. The main character, Skim, is a 16 year old high school student dealing with love, bullying, and peer death. Mariko Tamaki takes quite a risk with this novel, however. Skim begins to fall in love with a female teacher who appears to feel the same toward Skim at first, but then quickly resists. Skim is left heartbroken and quickly becomes depressed. While all of this is going on, a classmate commits suicide which get the entire school chattering about suicide and due to Skim's depressive state, rumors are started that Skin too, may be considering suicide. When Skin is invited to a classmates Halloween party she never expected to be the butt of a bullying joke that her classmates played on her and another "outcast" at school. This furthers Skim into depression.
I very much wish that this book had a happier story to tell, but then again, not all teens have a fairy tale, positive, happy-go-lucky story to tell. The graphs in this novel add great mystery to the story and also helps the reader to put names with faces. Graphic novels, however, can be very challenging too. I challenge future reader of this book to look not only at the message behind the text, but also at the underlying messages in the graphics. Graphic novels give the reader to to read beyond the text and maybe even get an entire different meaning out of a line of text with a graphic then a text without a graphic.