Information you should know:

Be prepared is a Graphic Novel aimed for Upper Elementary and Middle School.

Be Prepared is a semi auto-biographical telling of the Author’s (Vera) time at a Russian summer camp. It follows themes of not fitting in both in American and Russian Immigrant culture. It spans a month of time as Vera slowly learns to like camp by becoming herself instead of trying to fit in.

Why did I read this?

This book came into my library with several of the pages disconnected from the book. As it was a graphic novel this is difficult to repair and we didn’t have the tools. When we purpled it my director said I could take it home if I wanted and the Russian flag and camping theme made me interested. See I have a lot of Russian friends from my time in Armenia and I was a very involved Boy Scout. I thought it would be a fun romp and I was not dissapointed.

Review:

There are three things I hope to discuss after reading Be Prepared. The first is the illustrations and color choices. The second is the layout of panels which I believe to be something unique to graphic novels even if it shares overlaps with picture books. The final is character.

Trees are Green

Be Prepared is a story that is set at summer camp. It’s in the woods without running water or other amenities. Vera has thus chosen to set the entire book in washed out greens, blacks and whites. The colors while muted still bring a vibrancy to the layout. I’ve read many graphic novels and the choice for green as a primary color is unusual. Blue is often used as is typical black and grey or full color. I found the green very pleasing to look at.

Something that the art does very well is character’s faces. The characters often have heads that are slightly too big for their bodies. This draws my attention to their faces where simple details like eye shape or mouths do a lot of the emotional heavy lifting. It was very easy to tell how a character was feeling even without an internal monologue or discussion. This is one of the strengths of graphic novels and Be Prepared does a great job of preparing that.

Layout

Comics way back in the day used what is commonly referred to as a 9-panel layout to tell a story. At the time this seemed revolutionary as the only other comics were seen in paper and were short and often fit in one or two jokes. Be Prepared has come a long way since both of these. Vera choses to stick to traditional square panels but frequently mixes up the order to better have the reader follow along with the plot progression. We see pages ranging from a full spread to eight smaller panels per page. Panels are frequently of different sizes, even on the same line. This allows Vera to zoom out or zoom in to the characters or setting depending on what is important for the plot. It additionally creates visual and narrative breaks in the reading to emphasizes important moments in the story.

The titular Vera

Vera is a young girl aged 9 who feels as though she doesn’t fit in with her friends at school due to her socio economic class and her Russian heritage. Later it’s shown that she doesn’t fit in with other Russian immigrants either. She can’t read Russian and she doesn’t have much connection with the culture outside of food and church. She believes that going to summer camp will fix these problems for her. When she arrives she is put with the older girls and has to confront that they too are different than her. Interested in boys, going through periods, and more cliquish. She journeys through several trials and tribulations until she learns to embrace being herself by making a friend a year younger than her. Together they enjoy the camp and Vera becomes more accepting of herself.

I absolutely love Vera. There are many times in the book when I was able to relate to her and I think her experiences are very common for transitioning children to feel. It can be a hard time period between elementary and middle school not knowing where you fit in. Vera is emphatic and cares. Her experiences are clear and it’s easy to see the emotions and baggage she is working through. This makes for an excellent story because we the reader care about what happens to her.

Final Review

I think Be Prepared is a great recommendation for anyone who finds themselves struggling to fit in. Given the popularity of similar titles like Diary of a Whimpey Kid and Smile these are common journeys kids go through. This goes double for children who are second generation and have a unique experience caught between two different cultures. I would rate this a 9/10 and give a firm recommendation to my patrons.

Reference: Brosgol, V., & Longstreth, A. (2018). Be prepared (1st ed.). First Second.