SMILE

Bibliography

Telgemeier, Raina. 2010. SMILE. New York, NY: Scholastic Press Graphix. ISBN 0545132061

Plot Summary

Every 6^th grader wants to fit in and be normal, including Raina.  Unfortunately, one night she trips and falls and severely injures her two front teeth.  She must wear braces, have surgery, wear embarrassing headgear, and a retainer with fake teeth attached.  Her journey to self acceptance leads Raina to loose bully friends, make new friends who love and support her, and is able to smile with confidence again.  

Critical Analysis

The author turns her personal experiences into a funny graphic novel suited for 4^th grade and up.  Traumatic experiences are just as bad as puberty, which makes the reader relates to the main character, Raina as she experiences pimples, mean girls, boys and painful procedures with surgeries and braces during her journey from awkward middle schooler to high school student.

The setting is believable and apparent, as Raina is racing home from a Girl Scout meeting, trips, loses her two front teeth as she hits her mouth.  She is teased nonstop, more so after she is sent to school with a tooth cast.  The readers follow her story as vivid illustrations take them through a scary earthquake, being teased, and spin the bottle games with boys. 

Raina finds her voice and tells her two friends, Karin and Nicole, that she will not be disrespected anymore after they pulled her skirt down in front of the entire school. 

People from every culture at some point go through something like Raina’s journey.  They are teased by how they look and consequently feel lost and often wonder what their purpose in life is.  The reader understands the theme after Raina realizes that a lot of kids have braces and that friends support each other not make things harder.  It isn’t until Raina meets new friends, that she feels the love and understanding they have towards her.  The reader identifies with Raina seeing how her confidence heightens as she starts to respect herself when she feels better about how she looks. 

The colorful comic like images show the plot as the appearance of Raina goes from a young girl in middle school to a beautiful woman in high school. 

Review Excerpts

• "A story to comfort readers traveling the years between childhood and adulthood," –The New York Times
• Editors' Choice –The New York Times
• "Irresistible, funny and touching," with "strong writing and emotionally expressive characters" and one of the best 2010 nonfiction books for teens –Kirkus Reviews 
• "Excellent addition to middle school literature” –School Library Journal
• One of four "Great Graphic Novels for Family Entertainment" in a 2010 –The Christian Science Monitor
• 2010 Boston Globe - Horn Book Honor for Nonfiction
• 2011 Eisner Award for Best Publication for Teens
• Young Adult Library Services Association's 2011 Top Ten Great Graphic Novels for Teens, and a 2011 Association for Library Service to Children Notable Children's Book for Middle Readers
• 2013 Intermediate Young Reader's Choice Award from Washington
• 2013 Rebecca Caudill Young Reader's Book Award from Illinois
• 2014 Nevada Young Reader Award
• As of February 25, 2017 the paperback version had spent 240 weeks on The New York Times Best Sellers list under the category "Paperback Graphic Books.
  
  

Connections

Discussion questions can include:

• What does the term best friend mean to you?
• Do you have friends who don't treat you so nicely? What do they do?
• What do you do when they don't treat you nicely?
• Have you ever been unhappy with your appearance? Why?
• How did that make you feel? 

Other growing up novels about growing up include:
Freckle Juice (ISBN 1481411020), 

Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing (ISBN 0142408816) by Judy Blume 

and Drama by Raina Telgemeier (ISBN 0545326990)

Scholastic.com has a great site to have students create their own comic book https://beta.scholastic.com/kids/games/bone-comic-maker/