Module 13: Sisters

Module 13: Graphic Novels and Series Books

Book Summary

Sisters was written by Raina Telgemeier and it is a biographical graphic novel about the time of the author’s life when she was a teen, with flashbacks to when she was younger. The main storyline revolves around a road trip the family takes from their home in San Francisco to a family reunion in Colorado. In one of the flashbacks, Raina couldn’t wait to be a big sister but once Amara was born, things don’t work out the way Raina thought they would. Amara is grouchy and prefers to be alone. The sisters’ relationship doesn't improve over the years, and then a baby brother enters the picture. Later, their parents seem to not be getting along. The sisters work on their own relationship with each other.

APA Reference of Book

Telgemeier, R. (2014). Sisters. New York, NY: Graphix

Impressions

I was pleasantly surprised! This book was so engaging and fun to read. Graphic novels are able to achieve through the illustrations the subtleties of things like feelings that can be hard to describe in words. This book made me think about adolescence, family trips, and my relationships with my siblings.

Professional Review

Two sisters who are constantly at odds take a family road trip that covers more ground—both literally and figuratively—than they expect. After begging her parents for a sister, Raina gets more than she bargained for once Amara is born. From the moment she was brought home, Amara hasn't been quite the cuddly playmate that Raina had hoped. As the years pass, the girls bicker constantly and apparently couldn't be more unalike: Raina spends her time indoors underneath her headphones, and Amara loves animals and the outdoors. The girls, their mother and their little brother all pack up to drive to a family reunion, and it seems like the trip's just going to be more of the same, with the girls incessantly picking on each other all the way from San Francisco to Colorado. However, when the trip doesn't go quite as planned—for a number of reasons—the girls manage to find some common ground. Told in then-and-now narratives that are easily discernable in the graphic format, Telgemeier's tale is laugh-out-loud funny (especially the story about the snake incident) and quietly serious all at once. Her rounded, buoyant art coupled with a masterful capacity for facial expressions complements the writing perfectly. Fans of her previous books Smile (2010) and Drama (2012) shouldn't miss this one; it's a winner. A wonderfully charming tale of family and sisters that anyone can bond with. 2014, Graphix/Scholastic, 208 pp., $24.99. Category: Graphic memoir. Ages 7 to 13. Starred Review. © 2014 Kirkus Reviews/VNU eMedia, Inc. All rights reserved. 

(PUBLISHER: Graphix (New York:), PUBLISHED: [2014]) 

Reference

[Review of the book Sisters by R. Telgemeier]. (2014, June 1). Kirk’s Reviews, 82(11).

Library Uses

Discussion Questions from http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/lesson-plan/guide-raina-telgemeiers-sisters

1. Sisters takes place during different timelines, one focusing on the family road trip between San Francisco and Colorado. The others are a series of flashbacks to different times in Raina’s past. Why do you think the author decided to tell her story this way? How can you tell, from either the words or the pictures, which time period it is?
2. Which moments make Raina regret wishing for a sister? Which moments convince her having a sister is worth the aggravation?
3. Look at the full-page illustrations that appear between some sections throughout the book. What do these images tell you that you don’t learn elsewhere in the book? Why do you think the author chose to highlight these objects?
4. Consider how Raina feels about Amara at the beginning of the road trip and how she feels at the end. Do you think the road trip changed their attitudes? Identify three turning points in their relationship.
5. In comics, words and sounds are drawn or colored to signal how they sound. What do the styles of the word balloons, colors, and lettering tell you? Look at pages 108-109 for examples. What makes something a scream? A thought? A song? How do these add to the story?
6. Raina escapes her family’s crowded apartment and the confines of the van by listening to her Walkman. How does music help her relationships with her family? How does it hurt those relationships?
7. Consider Raina and Amara. What are three things that you see as appealing about Raina as a person? About Amara? What do you think they would list as three good (or bad) things about each other at the beginning of the story? What about at the end?
8. Sisters is a companion book to Raina Telgemeier’s memoir Smile, a story about Raina’s front teeth getting severely injured. How do the stories in Sisters fit together with those in Smile? How does reading both books give you a more complex picture of Raina and her family?
9. Compare Raina’s immediate family, including her mom, dad, brother, and sister, to her aunts, uncles, and cousins Josh, Jeremy, and Lindsay. How do Raina’s expectations for hanging out with her cousins compare to the reality? What does she learn about family, both good and bad?
10. Consider the fight that Raina and Amara have on pages 136 through 139. When Amara says, “You’re not being nice. You’re just feeling sorry for yourself,” what do you think she’s trying to tell Raina? What does Raina learn from that accusation?