Stargazing by Jen Wang tells the story of upper elementary-aged Christine and her new neighbor (housed by her family) and best friend Moon Lin. Christine is typically immersed in her school studies and extra academic practice, surrounded by her other Asian American friends. Each of her friends takes Chinese class with her and delights in sharing home-made Asian meals. Moon Lin is just about the polar opposite of Christine with her vegetarian lifestyle, Buddhist religious practices, and nail polish loving habits. Through countless hours spent together, Christine and Moon develop a deeply tender and loving friendship. Christine's dad finds Moon to be a little more different than the type of best friend he had envisioned for his studious daughter. Later in the story, Christine develops a sense of jealousy for the popularity that Moon has unintentionally acquired through her acquaintances made with Christine's other friends. Jealousy gets the best of Christine and stirs up trouble between her and Moon, which soon after leads to a deep sense of regret within Christine. Moon ends up in the hospital from the many seizures she has been having, unbeknownst to her family and friends. This tragic event causes Christine to truly reflect upon her hurtful actions towards Moon. When Moon makes her recovery, she is still unable to perform in the talent show with her friends, but discovers the care that the school has taken to show Moon and her family through a surprise fundraiser! Everyone cheers for Moon Lin, her family, and her recovery from surgery. Christine and Moon learn to forgive through unconditional love and overcoming differences. This story truly was a tear-jerk-er and warmed my heart dearly.
New Shoes by Sara Varon is such a fun and entertaining adventure about a young donkey named Francis living in a South American village. Francis is living his dream of making shoes for others while spending lots of time with his friends Rhoda and Nigel. Francis receives a big task of making a pair of shoes for the one and only pop star, Calypso singer, Miss Manatee! After receiving such incredible news, Francis pays a visit to Nigel, his friend who typically delivers his materials for making shoes. Nigel is discovered to have not returned from his usual weekend business trip which worries Francis and Rhoda. Off on their adventure, Rhoda and Francis meet many new creatures and friends in the jungle, learning about each new animal and plant along the way (such as the capybara, the anaconda, 3-toed sloth, stinking toe fruit, and more)! Francis and Rhoda brave many new challenges throughout their journey, even when they encounter a jaguar and other intimidating animals. When Francis and Rhoda discover Nigel tied up, they sort through all of the misunderstandings and misfortunes and even collaborate with their new friends! Francis is able to make the coolest, most interesting shoes for Miss Manatee and she performs right in Francis's home village. After reading this story, I am left feeling light-hearted and more understanding of feelings of anxiety and braving your fears.
Jen Wang is an award-winning, New York Times best-selling author and illustrator of many graphic novels including Stargazing. Wang takes heart in her work, moving through her illustrations from a reality perspective. For more information on Jen Wang, check out this interview specifically discussing Stargazing.
Sara Varon is the illustrator and author of many children's books including graphic novels like New Shoes and Robot Dreams. Varon has made herself available for many school visits and interviews as I was privileged enough to witness during my recent summer course! Many of her stories include animals as the main characters, bringing a new perspective and a fun point of view to each new story.
When reading each of these stories, I found myself feeling and discovering different emotions. Within Stargazing, I found myself more often than not, with tears beginning to well in my eyes. This story provides such detailed images with facial expressions and body language/movement as a main function for reading this story. Some of the images from panels overlap and continue into the next which helped me to really focus on the point within the page as a whole. Some moments in the story had song lyrics stretching over both pages and overlapping with different panels -- helping the reader to see that the moment in time was meant to be sat with for more than a panel's worth of time.
New Shoes has less panel usage than Stargazing, but I felt I had more time to really immerse myself in the setting of each chapter this way. Within most of the pages in this story, there are little informational blurbs about the surrounding animals, fruits, and plants in the setting of the story. The way the words on each page are gathered in either text bubbles, or written in color allow the reader to think about what the purpose of the text is more easily than typical novels or chapter books. The use of squiggly lines surrounding panels helps the reader also to see that these are visions of either future possibilities or past events, bringing the reader then back to the present to process where they are and what is happening in the story.
A critical social issue that I found arising within Stargazing includes the idea that friends can have differences, whether it be economically, socially, culturally or religiously. I believe there are ways to meet these differences not by simply overlooking them, but through acknowledging and celebrating them. When differences are overlooked and dismissed for periods of time, jealousy and other nasty habits/traits can grow and create unwanted tensions, as we saw within Christine. There was a moment when Moon was not enjoying her time spent in the Chinese class with Christine and the other friends so she quietly excused herself and hung out at home until the class had finished. Moon never really expressed anger over her disinterest with learning Chinese, but she did acknowledge her unwillingness to participate and waited for her friends to finish. I thought this would be a great scene to focus on with students. Students can learn a lot from Moon and her differences as well as from Christine and her learning about herself and others.
In chapter 7 (Honoring Others) of Reading to Make a Difference by Lester L. Laminack and Katie Kelly, they discuss the importance of kindness to everyone, kindness as a ripple effect in our everyday lives, and appreciating our differences for others no matter what their outward appearance exudes. I found that within each of the graphic novels I have read, I found Christine and Moon Lin to grow in a loving friendship with one another that overpowers the differences they experience in their cultures and homes. New Shoes encompasses learning about differences among others through getting to know a person for who they are, rather than their scary outward appearances like Harriet the jaguar.
In this spread from Stargazing, Christine has just come back home from hanging out with Moon. This particular hangout session involved Christine painting her toenails (trying something new) which was not really considered acceptable by her parents, specifically her father.
What I love about this spread of panels (on page 76) is that Christine is visibly excited and content with her new painted toenails -- something she hasn't experienced before. Christine can be seen carefully closing her door, jumping onto her bed with enthusiasm, while lifting her foot with excitement. The panel I love most on this page is when Christine is removing her sock. I find it so interesting that this has such a deep meaning that emphasis is placed on her removing her sock. The bottom of the page also holds weight in that over a third of the page is dedicated to Christine analyzing and admiring her newly painted toes.
If I were to use this spread of panels for instruction, I would encourage my students to think of a time they had tried something new, with a friend they loved, and enjoyed the new experience. My instructional goals for this page are to have students make inferences about Christine's thoughts about this experience she has just had based on their own experiences, her body language and facial expressions in each panel. The instructional steps for this spread would include breaking down Christine's actions in each panel. We might address her body language, color in her cheeks, facial expressions, and overall appearance while admiring her toenails. Students could easily place sticky notes of thoughts Christine might be having on each panel to express their understanding.
Here I am attaching my book comparison chart.
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