SUBSCRIBE
SUBSCRIBE
SLJ Blog Network +
  • 100 Scope Notes
  • A Fuse #8 Production
  • Good Comics for Kids
  • Heavy Medal: A Mock Newbery Blog
  • Teen Librarian Toolbox
  • The Classroom Bookshelf
  • The Yarn
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • About/Contact
  • Previews
  • Reviews
  • Manga
  • All Ages
  • Young Adult
  • Interviews
  • News

August 4, 2020 by J. Caleb Mozzocco

Review: ‘Shirley & Jamila Save Their Summer’

August 4, 2020 by J. Caleb Mozzocco   Leave a Comment

Shirley & Jamila Save Their Summer
Writer/artist: Gillian Goerz
Dial Books; $20.99

My favorite part of Shirley & Jamila Save Their Summer is when the rather strange young girl Shirley Bones finally reveals to her new friend Jamila that she’s a detective, which seems to answer many of the questions Jamilia has about the super-smart, super-observant, super-mysterious friend wearing a garage-sale trench coat in the summer.

“Cool!” Jamila says, to which a blushing Shirley replies, “It’s fairly ordinary.”

Kid detectives were fairly ordinary when I was a child racing through books to participate in the library’s summer reading program, a generation ago, and, if anything, they are still more common now, something that the seemingly all-knowing Shirley slyly acknowledges in this rare meta-joke of cartoonist Gillian Goerz’s entry into the kids book sub-genre.

SCROLL TO KEEP READING THIS POST

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

One of the particularly neat things about Goerz’s book is that the fact that it is a mystery involving a kid detective is kept from the reader for a good 60 pages, and that fact in itself is presented as something of a mystery.

Jamila Waheed is new in town, and her mother has signed her up for a summer science camp, even though she would prefer to spend her free time practicing basketball at the court down the street, something her mother forbids her to do unsupervised.

Shirley Bones, meanwhile, is so socially awkward that her mother has had trouble finding her friends to play with, and so she signed her up for summer ballet camp.

After a chance meeting between the girls, and an arranged meeting between their mothers, a plan is arrived at: They will be excused from their respective summer camps provided they spend their time together at the basketball court, essentially supervising and socializing one another. Jamila is so happy to be able to play basketball all day that she’s slow to realize what’s in it for Shirley, and what, exactly, Shirley is up to, as she’s constantly being visited by kids and bringing the strangest items with her.

Once Jamila does learn that Shirley is a detective, she wants in, and together they break the rules their moms established for them and stray from the basketball court to crack a particularly vexing case. A brother and sister brought their pet gecko to the public pool, and it was stolen! Or maybe kidnapped? In either case, it’s definitely missing, and it’s up to Shirley and Jamila to find it.

The rest of the book follows the case, as the girls track down suspects, sift through motivations, eliminate possibilities and ultimately solve the crime, with Shirley finding a way to bring about a sort of justice in which everyone wins, no one loses, and a handful of other kids also have their summers saved, similar to the way in which she and Jamila were able to save their own summers.

SCROLL TO KEEP READING THIS POST

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

Goerz recycles detective fiction cliches to comedic effect throughout, with Shirley paying off an informant with candy and a classic climax in which all of the suspects are gathered in the parlor…er, the backyard for the revelation of who committed the crime and how it was pulled off.

Given how much time and attention is spent on the two girls, their families and their relationship to one another, a dynamic that has its own story arc parallel to the details of gecko-napping case, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this is but the first outing of Shirley and Jamila.

Beyond the parodic elements, Goerz has the various character beats of a great middle-school dramedy down pat, and the fact that she works them into a charmingly drawn graphic novel is all the better.

There’s a great deal of cartoonishness about the artworkβ€”the characters never change clothes, for one thingβ€”but Goerz’s art style is of a perfect compromise one, between cartoony exaggeration and realistic rendering. The result is that her book reads like a good middle school prose novel, and looks like a great graphic novel…which, of course, it is.

Filed under: Graphic Novels, Reviews

SHARE:

Read or Leave Comments
dial booksGillian GoerzPenguin Random HouseShirley & Jamila Save Their Summer

About J. Caleb Mozzocco

J. Caleb Mozzocco is a way-too-busy freelance writer who has written about comics for online and print venues for a rather long time now. He currently contributes to Comic Book Resources' Robot 6 blog and ComicsAlliance, and maintains his own daily-ish blog at EveryDayIsLikeWednesday.blogspot.com. He lives in northeast Ohio, where he works as a circulation clerk at a public library by day.

ADVERTISEMENT

Related Posts

September 2023

My Girlfriend's Child, vols. 1 and 2 | Review

by J. Caleb Mozzocco

August 2023

Monstrous: A Transracial Adoption Story | Review

by J. Caleb Mozzocco

August 2023

Norma & Belly | Series Review

by J. Caleb Mozzocco

August 2023

Akane-banashi, vol. 1 | Review

by J. Caleb Mozzocco

July 2023

Adventures in Cartooning | Series Review

by J. Caleb Mozzocco

ADVERTISEMENT

SLJ Blog Network

100 Scope Notes

Books on Film: Jason Reynolds on CBS Mornings

by Travis Jonker

A Fuse #8 Production

β€œThe nature of healing is unpredictable.” An Andrew Knapp Interview About Find Momo

by Betsy Bird

Good Comics for Kids

The Boy from Clearwater | Excerpt

by Brigid Alverson

Heavy Medal

Poetry Round-Up: Newbery possibilities featuring wordplay, wit, and poetic insights for kids

by Steven Engelfried

Teen Librarian Toolbox

Be That Way: Art as Play, a guest post by Hope Larson

by Amanda MacGregor

The Classroom Bookshelf

The Classroom Bookshelf is Moving

by Erika Thulin Dawes

The Yarn

Peter Brown Visits The Yarn to talk about The Wild Robot Protects

by Colby Sharp

ADVERTISEMENT

Related Articles on SLJ

'Salt Magic,' 'The Legend of Auntie Po,' and 'Run: Book One' Among 2022 Eisner Award Winners

'Himawari House' Wins 2022 Kirkus Prize for Young Readers' Literature

15 Middle Grade & YA Graphic Novels & Audiobooks for Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month

Nonfiction Graphic Novels Spotlight Microhistories and Overlooked Historical Figures

For Spider-Man Fans, Key Reading on the Spider-Verse

Commenting for all posts is disabled after 30 days.

ADVERTISEMENT

Archives

Follow This Blog

Enter your email address below to receive notifications of new blog posts by email.

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

Primary Sidebar

  • News & Features
  • Reviews+
  • Technology
  • School Libraries
  • Public Libraries
  • Age Level
  • Ideas
  • Blogs
  • Classroom
  • Diversity
  • People
  • Job Zone

Reviews+

  • Book Lists
  • Best Books
  • Media
  • Reference
  • Series Made Simple
  • Tech
  • Review for SLJ
  • Review Submissions

SLJ Blog Network

  • 100 Scope Notes
  • A Fuse #8 Production
  • Good Comics for Kids
  • Heavy Medal
  • Neverending Search
  • Teen Librarian Toolbox
  • The Classroom Bookshelf
  • The Yarn

Resources

  • 2022 Youth Media Awards
  • The Newbery at 100: SLJ Celebrates the 100th Anniversary of the Award
  • Special Report | School Libraries 2021
  • Summer Reading 2021
  • Series Made Simple Spring 2021
  • SLJ Diverse Books Survey
  • Summer Programming Survey
  • Research
  • White Papers / Case Studies
  • School Librarian of the Year
  • Mathical Book Prize Collection Development Awards
  • Librarian/Teacher Collaboration Award

Events & PD

  • In-Person Events
  • Online Courses
  • Virtual Events
  • Webcasts
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Advertise
  • Subscribe
  • Media Inquiries
  • Newsletter Sign Up
  • Content Submissions
  • Data Privacy
  • Terms of Use
  • Terms of Sale
  • FAQs
  • Diversity Policy
  • Careers at MSI


COPYRIGHT © 2023


COPYRIGHT © 2023