Act by Kayla Miller

Genre: Fiction graphic novel

Age Group: Grades 3-7, 8-12 years old

Summary: In this heartwarming follow up to Click and Camp, we find Olive wanting to act for her classmates and their issues. After attempting protesting, Olive finds herself throwing her hat into the ring for the student council election.

I chose this book because I enjoyed Kayla Miller's previous works Click and Camp. Finding this book on the Bluebonnet list left me ecstatic seeing that the age group this graphic novel is intended for are enjoying it as well.

Review:

One great thing I enjoyed about the book are the characters of Act. Olive is a personable and relatable tween girl navigating school, friendships and figuring out what matters most to her. Trent and Sawyer portray the laid-back, skater bro duo with whom Olive hangs with from time to time. There is the “will they or won’t they” couple of the friend group Willow and Hugh, who are sorting out their feelings during the awkwardness that is the tween years. Followed by Ava, a headstrong cheerleader who assists Olive with her campaign. The characters are fully developed each having their own definite personalities. It makes sense that Trent and Sawyer create their whole campaign around the platform of adding pudding to the cafeteria as it plays into their character aesthetic as bro-dudes.

The tension involved within Act adds to the believability of the plot and motivates the character development. Trent and Sawyer are astounded and upset when they find their friend Olive joining in the running for student council representative. This creates conflict as there are only two viable spots for their grade on student council and if Olive were to win it would break up the brotherly duo of Trent and Sawyer. Olive is wanting to run to find resolutions to the issues of her classmates while Trent and Sawyer are running as somewhat of a joke to gain pudding in the cafeteria. Olive running her campaign also creates tension in her friendships with Willow and Hugh as Hugh has taken on becoming Trent and Sawyer’s campaign manager and Willow has drawn their poster. This tension had me on edge wondering if these friendships would be rekindled and what would be the outcome of the student election.

Another thing I enjoyed about this graphic novel were the coloring and illustrations. Miller’s use of coloring is great here as she goes for bright coloring on the use of the characters and utilizes soft colors in the background when characters are speaking. Her use of color adds to the mood of the novel. When taking a quick flip through of the novel an assumption one can make is that the novel won’t be filled with great depths of sadness. Her choice of color palette and the simplicity of her illustrations is also appealing to the age group that age demographic she is targeting of 8-12 years old.

I enjoyed Act and would definitely recommend for those who are looking for a graphic novel touched with coming of age elements.

Miller, K. (2020). Act. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.