Author: Reina Telgemeier
LGBTQ+ Representation: One character identifies as gay, another is questioning
What it’s about (in 75 words or fewer): Callie is super excited to work on the set design for the middle school musical. Go stage crew! The drama backstage: is Greg, Callie's crush, going to break up with Bonnie? Callie becomes closer to Justin when he confides in her that he's gay. Callie also develops a new crush on Justin's twin, brother Jesse. Plus, will she ever make the cannon prop work? It MUST or the play might be a FAILURE!
What I think: I experienced so much warm and fuzzy nostalgia while reading Drama. I was a drama geek for years; I even served as president of Thespian Troupe 901 for two years in high school. My undergraduate college degree is in theatre education. 🎭
My friends and I still talk about the drama and relationships and the EPIC CAST PARTIES that occurred during our high school plays, and we've been out of high school for . . .well, quite some years. 😉
Telgemeier captures the emotions of a drama geek and a middle school girl so well in Drama. I admit I had trouble at first because I am not used to reading graphic novels and kept forgetting to "read" the pictures. I kept mixing up the characters and then had to flip back to the pages where they introduced themselves.
Callie's persistence with the painting and getting the cannon to work onstage was adorable and relatable. I remember working long Saturdays and late in the night with stage crews, getting covered in paint and sawdust and getting more and more slap-happy as the the hours got later. We always managed to pull the show together even when it seemed like it would never happen.
Callie reacts just perfectly to Justin coming out to her; she gives him a hug and does not tell his secret to the world. That being said, she does develop a bit of a crush on him, which makes him uncomfortable, but they work this out by the end of the story.
I was prepared complain about the use of the trope of "boy is just being mean to girl because he likes her," and part of that trope definitely appears in this story but is resolved in a way that made me very happy instead of making me roll my eyes. Not telling you anymore because spoilers.
So . . . let's talk about the buttheads of the world. There are a lot of them; have you noticed? Drama has faced more than its fair share of criticisms, including appearing on the ALA's Top 10 most banned and challenged books list for several years in a row.
Common complaints are that Drama is "sexually explicit" (nope--there are three kisses in the book; that's hardly sexually explicit), is "politically, racially, and/or socially offensive" (apparently just having gay characters in stories is "offensive"), and contains LGBTQ+ characters who have crushes on each other (sigh). But at least one school changed its mind about banning the book, so, yay?
This book is on the 2013 Rainbow Book List.
My final takeaway (in 75 words or fewer): Drama is adorable and absolutely recommended for middle and high schoolers, especially those who work on plays. I was pleased that the focus was more on the stage crew than on the actors--this is unusual in books as the main characters are often "the stars in the plays." I also recommend the book for adults like me, who have super fond memories of middle and high school plays.
A special thank you to my best friend's daughter who let me borrow this book--two Christmases ago! I finally got around to reviewing it.
Memorable quotes/passages from the book: Also pictures, since you can't (in my opinion) separate the words from pictures in a graphic novel.
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| pg. 51 |
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| pg. 53 |
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| pg. 81 |
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| pg. 195 |
Other reviews: Publisher's Weekly and Book Smugglers.
This book is available from the Greensboro Public Library.
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