"A coming-of-age middle-grade graphic novel featuring a girl with severe allergies who just wants to find the perfect pet!
At home, Maggie is the odd one out. Her parents are preoccupied with getting ready for a new baby, and her younger brothers are twins and always in their own world. Maggie loves animals and thinks a new puppy to call her own is the answer, but when she goes to select one on her birthday, she breaks out in hives and rashes. She's severely allergic to anything with fur!
Can Maggie outsmart her allergies and find the perfect pet? With illustrations by Michelle Mee Nutter, Megan Wagner Lloyd uses inspiration from her own experiences with allergies to tell a heartfelt story of family, friendship, and finding a place to belong."
At home, Maggie is the odd one out. Her parents are preoccupied with getting ready for a new baby, and her younger brothers are twins and always in their own world. Maggie loves animals and thinks a new puppy to call her own is the answer, but when she goes to select one on her birthday, she breaks out in hives and rashes. She's severely allergic to anything with fur!
Can Maggie outsmart her allergies and find the perfect pet? With illustrations by Michelle Mee Nutter, Megan Wagner Lloyd uses inspiration from her own experiences with allergies to tell a heartfelt story of family, friendship, and finding a place to belong."
As a teacher, my biggest goal is to get kids to pick up books and read them. Many of my kids want to read graphic novels. This is great because they are reading, but there are definite downfalls. Graphic novels lack the details and depth that's present in a novel. The entire book is made up of pictures in a comic book style which makes the book "longer", but there's less actual reading. That being said, I'm here to review this book which was sent to me from Scholastic!
Allergic tells the story of a girl named Maggie and her desire to own a dog. But once she picks out a dog and they are ready to start the adoption, she suffers from a severe allergic reaction. Maggie soon finds out that she is allergic to feather and fur dander which means she can't own a pet with feathers or fur. Maggie soon sets out on a quest to find the perfect pet, while also navigating a new school and the upcoming arrival of a new baby in the family.
This book was cute enough for a graphic novel. As I mentioned before I have a real love-hate relationship with graphic novels. The illustrations were the high point of this book. There were some small details in them that really pulled the book together. Unfortunately, I felt like the storyline had a little to be desired. I feel like a lot of kids won't connect with the allergy storyline. But there was also the storyline of getting a new sibling, starting at a new school, and the unspoken anxiety present in Maggie. It felt like a lot crammed into one book, but never really being hit on real hard. I would have loved to have read more on the anxiety take and how Maggie learned to manage it. I think more kids suffer from anxiety than allergy problems, and I think having the management and coping techniques would have been wonderful for kids to read about. But many kids can connect with the desire to get a pet, and I think that was probably the only winning point of this book.
This book was good, but it just wasn't up my alley. I think I will have many fifth graders who will enjoy it once I'm able to open my library up again next school year. I would really enjoy a book that follows Maggie and focuses on her anxiety. I give this 2 stars. There wasn't anything necessarily wrong with this book. I just don't like graphic novels and this one lacked the reading aspect present in a book.
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