Debut author/illustrator Kane Lynch draws on personal childhood experiences in Reel Life, a grounded and accessible middle-grade graphic novel about a film-loving boy who creates a documentary about his parents' surprise divorce.
Galen simply wants to make movies with his friends, but divorce has different plans for the sixth grader. Kyle, one of Galen's friends, is turning into a bully while his parents fight a long custody battle. Now Galen's parents are divorcing, seemingly out of the blue, and he feels like he's in "a terrifying alternate world where everyone is transformed." Since the only reliable things in his life are his love of film ("no matter how scary or strange a movie is, in the end, everything always makes sense") and his best friend, Luna, Galen decides to make a documentary with Luna about "the mystery" of his parents' split. But the more he records--meeting his dad's cool new girlfriend, beginning a new two-house schedule, struggling to stay connected with friends--the less he understands. Can Galen find the right lens to bring his family and friends' instability into focus?
Lynch expertly juggles subplots in the many nuanced aspects of Galen's uprooted life to create a fictional narrative of divorce that nonetheless feels raw, particularly in the realistic dialogue. Thickly outlined characters stand out against the detailed, less color-saturated backgrounds by colorist Maddie Sackett. Fans of Lucy Knisley's Stepping Stones and Jarad Greene's A-Okay will likely find Reel Life an excellent addition to their shelves. --Nicole Brinkley, bookseller and writer