Author and Illustrator: Jimmy Gownley
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Publication Date: May 5th 2009
New school, new friends, and a new life are what’s in store for nine-year-old Amelia Louise McBride. Forced out of Manhattan and into small-town life after her parents’ divorce, Amelia struggles to keep her sanity amid her new friends: the superhero wannabe Reggie Grabinsky, “arch nemesis” Rhonda Bleenie, and the mysterious loner known only as “Pajamaman”.
Peanuts, Calvin and Hobbes, Baby Blues, Zits…Amelia Rules! ? It is a question that is tougher to answer than you might originally think. Those are the books that I think fall into the same category as Amelia Rules! and Jimmy Gownley does some things better than even those classics. Amelia is a multiple Eisner and Harvey Nominee and with good reason, but it may be a bit too “real life” from the perspective of the Sunday Funnies crowd.
Amelia Rules! has many things going for it that make it stand out among the many other graphic novels that seem to pop up when I go to Comic Con each year, and I was happy to hear that Simon & Schuster would be handling the Amelia Rules! universe going forward. This is a book that really needs to be brought to the masses. Let us start with Amelia’s family, Gownley brings Amelia out of the city to the suburbs with her mother and Aunt Tanner (more on Tanner later). Amelia’s mother is going through all of the things associated with the divorce, but seems to be doing a great job at raising a well behaved and moral girl. She is a bit of the rock in Amelia’s life and is actually used sparingly in this volume, but when she does appear it is well placed. Amelia’s father is a bit more of story device. He cancels weekends with his daughter, and as many of you well know that is something that is quite real to children of divorced parents. What I love is that Amelia’s father has a job that was probably the coolest thing when she was younger, but now seems silly to her. Her father is in the licensing department for Softee Chicken, it makes for some father daughter growing up moments.
Aunt Tanner is an interesting part of Amelia’s life and helps flesh out the story, but at the same time her character may be the one that causes the most conflict for me as a reader. Aunt Tanner is sexy, and that is a weird word to use in the context of 9 year olds, but that is truly one of the parts that she plays. Reggie is do infatuated with her that many times he does not even realize that there is anything going on in the world around him. A bit weird for me to read about a pre-teen in that situation, and while I know it to be one that most boys are in, it walks a line with me. Aunt Tanner is also a rocker, and as such uses a lot of references to rock-and-roll songs in her imparting of wisdom to Amelia, which for someone that is not a fan to rock-and-roll loses some of the impact. interesting though for the kids
The first volume The Whole World’s Crazybrings us all the excitement Amelia has at school, takes us through a Halloween with the crew, Christmas time, and then a trip with Amelia, her friends and her father. Through these stories we meet Amelia’s friends and “arch nemesis” as well as all of the crazy real life characters that Amelia interacts with. I love Pajamaman, the loner of the group that really does not worry so much about looking cool just being with his friends. Reggie is at the perfect age of still wanting to be a super hero, but at the same time having crushes. I find Rhonda works as a character that while fights with Amelia is kept around and hangs with the gang because Reggie is still friends with her. What Reggie does not know is that Rhonda is in puppy love with Reggie as well making for some interesting moments in the gang. Gownley does a great job at creating these realistic and well fleshed out characters. It is not all about the gang themselves, we are introduced to crazy teachers at school, the cute girls at schools, and the bullies that are just as scared as the rest of them. We teeter right on the edge of the children’s mind and it is a great ride.
This is a graphic novel so it is a must that we touch on the artwork as well as the story. The color schemes worked and felt vibrant enough to compliment a 9 year old and her friends. What I always find nice is when an artist does not try to force too much art into each panel but allow the story to develop without having to show everything. Gownley uses different background techniques that have my brain a bit confused. Sometimes we will get a blurry background that really allows us to focus on the characters but in the next panel we have it more in focus. I think that Gownley uses the background as a story telling device, guiding the reader to what is a more poignant panel over another. Very clever Gownley.
Amelia is really the American Girl for the world that we now live in. While things may not be perfect in her family life she sure does have a moral compass and a great deal of compassion. Reading more of Amelia, her family, and her friends is something that is going to have to be pushed up to the top of the list. Gownley has provided “real” entertainment, something that may just make its way to upper echelon, and I am willing to get on that ride to find out. Gownley has tempered things like divorced parents, bullies, teasing, and poverty with fun, compassion, and caring and that should make people notice that Amelia is a girl that lives in our world who acts in ways we can relate to as both children and adults.
