Smile (comic book)

Smile is an autobiographical graphic novel written by Raina Telgemeier.[1] It was published in February of 2010 by Graphix, an imprint of Scholastic Inc.[2] The novel provides an account of the author's life, characterized by dental procedures and struggles with fitting in, from sixth grade to high school. The book originated as a webcomic, which was serialized on Girlamatic.[3] It is most appropriate for readers between fourth and sixth grade.[4][5][6] Smile has had a pedagogical impact, and many reviews have been written on this novel.

Smile
Smile cover
AuthorRaina Telgemeier
GenreAutobiography; Graphic novel; nonfiction
PublisherScholastic/Graphix
Publication date
February 2010
Media typePrint (Hardcover and Paperback)
Pages213
AwardsEisner Award, 2011
ISBN0-545-13206-1
OCLC289095899
LC ClassRK55.Y68 T45 2010
Followed bySisters 
Websitegoraina.com/smile

Background

Smile was initially published as a webcomic on Girlamatic, an online magazine website.[3] One strip of Telgemeier’s comic was published online each week.[3] Telgemeier created this comic to tell the story of her adolescence, though she did not initially write these strips for Girlamatic with children in mind as her intended audience.[3]

Smile was published as a graphic novel with eight chapters by the Graphix imprint of Scholastic Inc. in 2010.[2] Stephanie Yue did the color for the novel version of Smile.[1]

Summary

Smile is a graphic novel that depicts the dental obstacles and social challenges author Raina Telgemeier experienced as a young teenager in San Francisco in the late 1980s.[1] The novel begins with an eleven-year-old Raina preparing to get braces. However, Raina falls when racing her friends and dislodges her two front teeth. Raina undergoes emergency dental surgery, but her teeth do not return to their original position. Raina has to visit many specialists and have several dental surgeries. In addition to dealing with the consequences of her dental trauma, Raina is trying to figure out who she is and how she fits in with the girls around her as she progresses through middle school.

Raina’s friends tease her about her teeth, her hair, and her non-pierced ears. As Raina works hard to keep up with the girls in her social circle, she gets braces and headgear. Raina enters seventh grade and develops a crush on a boy named Sammy. Her family experiences the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Raina receives the bad news that her front teeth are not moving as expected with her braces. Her orthodontist creates a plan to remove her front teeth, give Raina temporary fake teeth, and move the rest of her teeth to the center with braces so that her side teeth will become her front teeth. While Raina worries about getting her front teeth pulled, she goes to see The Little Mermaid and decides she wants to be a cartoon animator when she grows up.

Raina has her two teeth extracted and gets a retainer with fake front teeth, which she feels makes her look normal. Raina becomes more confident and smiles at the people around her, like Sean, another boy she likes. Raina plans to go to the Valentine’s Dance at her school, but when she learns that Sean is not going, she never goes to the dance like she told Sammy she would. Sammy does not talk to Raina again. When Raina speaks to her friends about the fact that she is getting braces put on again, they make rude comments. Raina tries to confront them, but they do not realize she is being serious. Raina has a thirteenth birthday party where her friends play tricks on her.

As Raina starts eighth grade, her teeth move closer together and she only has one fake tooth. All of Raina’s friends are going through puberty, and the boys around them notice. Raina tries out for the girls’ basketball team because Sean likes basketball, but she does not make the cut. Raina’s friends start to have boyfriends, but when she goes to an end-of-school party, she opts out of a game of spin the bottle. Raina has gum surgery and passes out from the pain.

Raina graduates middle school and has her fake tooth removed. She hopes for a fresh start as she begins high school at a new school, but is disappointed to see all her friends from middle school there. After her friends continue to tease and mistreat her, Raina tells them she is done being friends with them. Raina is lonely at first, but finds new good friends quickly and gets more involved in artistic activities at school. During her sophomore year of high school, Raina gets her braces taken off, and the novel ends with Raina happily attending a school dance with her new friends.

Character list
  • Raina - A young teenager who has an accident that leaves her with dental trauma. Raina is the character based on author Raina Telgemeier’s teen self.
  • Dr. Dragoni - Raina’s orthodontist.
  • Mom - Raina’s mother.
  • Amara - Raina’s younger sister.
  • Will - Raina and Amara’s younger brother.
  • Kelli - The friend that was with Raina when she fell and injured her teeth.
  • Dad - Raina’s father.
  • Dr. Golden - Raina’s dentist.
  • Melissa - One of Raina’s friends from middle school.
  • Nicole - One of Raina’s friends from middle school.
  • Sammy - The boy in Raina’s band class that Raina has a crush on as she begins seventh grade.
  • Sean - The boy in Raina’s art class that Raina has a crush on for most of middle school.
  • Theresa - The first new friend Raina makes in high school.

Genre and style

Smile is a graphic novel based on Telgemeier's experience.[6] This novel is recommended for children who are in fourth grade or above.[4][5]

This graphic novel has a cartoon-like style that is typical of and unique to author Raina Telgemeier.[3] Professor Michelle Ann Abate notes that, as can be seen in the text of many graphic novels, Smile utilizes nonstandard capitalization and mixed-case lettering.[7] Telgemeier’s style also involves altering the size and shape of the panels of her graphic novel to create dramatic effects.[8]

Although the graphic novel form may provide more opportunities for levity than the traditional novel structure, Smile shows that this literary style can be used to convey serious and emotional events in a compelling manner.[8]

Analysis

The use of Smile in pedagogical settings has been debated.

Pedagogical advantages of using Smile

Scholars hold that graphic novels, and Smile in particular, can pique the interests of students who do not enjoy reading traditional literature.[9][4][10][5][11] Writer Jess Bradley cites Smile as a graphic novel that contributed to the increasing popularity of graphic novels around 2010 and a book that continues to attract a large number of readers.[9] A study conducted by Professor William Boerman-Cornell in 2016 upholds the pedagogical value of Smile, as it includes this novel in a list of recommended graphic fiction for middle grade readers.[4] Educational researcher Elizabeth Friese holds that Smile is a graphic novel that provides children with an example of a nontraditional way to share their life stories.[10] Additionally, Friese notes that Telgemeier’s inner voice comes through sharply in this novel in a way that may help students understand their own experiences of consciousness.[10] Professor Laura Jiménez and her colleagues argue that graphic novels like Smile help children learn to integrate source types and engage in the process of meaning-making while reading texts of all types.[5]

Elementary school teacher Caryn Wilkinson provides an example of a way that Smile can be used as a scaffolding text in classroom settings.[11] After engaging with one section of Telgemeier’s text, Wilkinson's students were able to make detailed observations about the text when they were not looking at the page and demonstrate their understanding of the scene in a more coherent way than Wilkinson had seen them explain scenes from traditional pedagogical literature.[11]

Pedagogical disadvantages of using Smile

While many scholars considering the way literature is taught believe that graphic novels like Smile provide unique opportunities for children who do not love to read to explore a new type of storytelling, Professor Michelle Ann Abate holds that graphic novels like Smile often include typographic features such as irregular capitalization that are more difficult to process for children who struggle with literacy.[7] Additionally, Professors Wendy Smith-D’Arezzo and Janine Holc note that Smile fails to represent people with marginalized identities in roles that are central to the plot of the novel.[12] They criticize Smile for centering a white, middle-class family that interacts mostly with people who share their background.[12]

Reception

The book received positive reviews. The New York Times described it as "a story to comfort readers traversing the years between childhood and adulthood," and named it an "Editors' Choice."[13][14] Kirkus Reviews called it "irresistible, funny and touching," with "strong writing and emotionally expressive characters"; Later, Kirkus Reviews designated it one of the best 2010 nonfiction books for teens.[15][16] According to School Library Journal, it is an "excellent addition to middle school literature."[17] It was included as one of four "Great Graphic Novels for Family Entertainment" in a 2010 article in The Christian Science Monitor.[18] Smile is included on the list of 2011 Books for Young Adolescents published by Voices from the Middle that focuses on novels featuring authentic youthful voices written for middle grade children.[19]

In a 2010 interview with librarian Snow Wildsmith of Good Comics for Kids, Telgemeier said that the first print run of the book sold out in four months.[3] Telgemeier also noted that she believed children are attracted to the cover of Smile, then are pleased to find out it is a “comic book”.[3] Telgemeier said that she hears that “kids are insane for it”.[3]

As of February 25, 2017 the paperback version of this novel had spent 240 weeks on The New York Times Best Sellers list under the category "Paperback Graphic Books."[20] Smile was last featured on The New York Times Bestseller list for Graphic Books and Manga in February of 2021.[21]

The impact of Smile can be seen in the way that it has been incorporated into other works.[22] In 2014, Mark Tatulli wrote Smile into his daily comic strip Heart of the City, as heroine Heart Lamarr discovers the graphic novel on a trip to the library with her mother.[22]

Awards

Smile won the 2010 Boston Globe - Horn Book Honor for Nonfiction.[23] In 2011, the novel won the Eisner Award for Best Publication for Teens.[24] It was also one of Young Adult Library Services Association's 2011 Top Ten Great Graphic Novels for Teens and a 2011 Association for Library Service to Children Notable Children's Book for Middle Readers.[25][26] In 2013, it won the Intermediate Young Reader's Choice Award from Washington and the 2013 Rebecca Caudill Young Reader's Book Award from Illinois.[27][28] Smile also won the 2014 Nevada Young Reader Award.[29]

References
  1. Telgemeier, Raina. Smile. Scholastic Press, 2010.
  2. “Smile.” The Teacher Store, Scholastic Inc., 2022, shop.scholastic.com/teachers-ecommerce/teacher/books/smile-9780545132060.html.
  3. Wildsmith, Snow. “Interview: Raina Telgemeier.” Good Comics for Kids, School Library Journal, June 2010, goodcomicsforkids.slj.com/2010/06/13/interview-raina-telgemeier/.
  4. Boerman-Cornell, William. "The Intersection of Words and Pictures: Second through Fourth Graders Read Graphic Novels." The Reading Teacher, vol. 70, no. 3, 2016, pp. 327-335, doi:10.1002/trtr.1525.
  5. Jiménez, Laura M., et al. "Moving Our Can(n)ons: Toward an Appreciation of Multimodal Texts in the Classroom." The Reading Teacher, vol. 71, no. 3, 2017, pp. 363-368, doi:10.1002/trtr.1630.
  6. Smith, Jennifer M., and Kathryn Pole. "What's Going on in a Graphic Novel?" The Reading Teacher, vol. 72, no. 2, 2018, pp. 169-177, https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.1695.
  7. Abate, Michelle Ann. “Reading Capital: Graphic Novels, Typography, and Literacy.” The English Journal, vol. 108, no. 1, Sept. 2018, pp. 66–72. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26610229.
  8. "Comics Made Personal." Scholastic Art, vol. 42, no. 2, 2011, pp. 8-9. ProQuest Central, Research Library.
  9. Bradley, Jess. "Why Comics are Awesome for Reluctant Readers!" The School Librarian, vol. 69, no. 2, 2021, pp. 12-13. ProQuest Central.
  10. Friese, Elizabeth E. G. "Visual Narratives." Knowledge Quest, vol. 41, no. 3, 2013, pp. 24-29. ProQuest Central.
  11. Wilkinson, Caryn. "Graphic Novels: A Scaffolding Strategy for Young Writers." The Reading Teacher, vol. 69, no. 4, 2016, pp. 401, doi:10.1002/trtr.1433.
  12. Smith-D'Arezzo, Wendy, and Janine Holc. "Reframing Disability through Graphic Novels for Girls: Alternative Bodies in Cece Bell's El Deafo." Girlhood Studies, vol. 9, no. 1, 2016, pp. 72-87. ProQuest Central.
  13. Bird, Elizabeth (May 14, 2010). "Blood, Sweat and Teeth". The New York Times. Retrieved February 12, 2013.
  14. "Editors' Choice: Recent Books of Particular Interest". The New York Times. May 23, 2010. Retrieved February 15, 2013.
  15. "Smile by Raina Telgemeier". Kirkus Reviews. January 1, 2010. Retrieved February 15, 2013.
  16. "2010 Best Books for Teens: Nonfiction". Kirkus Reviews. Retrieved February 15, 2013.
  17. Wildsmith, Snow (December 30, 2009). "Review: Smile". School Library Journal "it has a shark in it" blog. Retrieved February 15, 2013.
  18. Clabaugh, Rich (December 3, 2010). "4 Great Graphic Novels for Family Entertainment". The Christian Science Monitor. Retrieved February 12, 2013.
  19. Bird, Shawn, and Vickey M. Giles, editors. “Honoring the Student Voices in Young Adult Literature.” Voices from the Middle, vol. 18, no. 3, Mar. 2011, pp. 53–54. ProQuest Central, Research Library.
  20. "Best Sellers - Paperback Graphic Books". The New York Times. August 2, 2015. Retrieved February 15, 2013.
  21. “Graphic Books and Manga: Best Sellers.” The New York Times, The New York Times, Feb. 2021, www.nytimes.com/books/best-sellers/2021/02/01/graphic-books-and-manga/.
  22. Tatulli, Mark (2014-05-09). "Heart of the City". GoComics.
  23. "2010 Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards for Excellence in Children's Literature". The Horn Book, Inc. 2011. Archived from the original on 2011-05-15. Retrieved 2011-04-17.
  24. "2011 Eisner Awards". Comic-Con International. 2011. Retrieved 2013-02-17.
  25. "2011 Top Ten Great Graphic Novels for Teens". Young Adult Library Services Association. Retrieved 2013-02-17.
  26. "2011 Notable Children's Books". Association for Library Service to Children, American Library Association. Retrieved 2013-02-17.
  27. “Young Reader's Choice Award Three Division Winners 2011-2021.” Pacific Northwest Library Association, 28 Mar. 2022, pnla.org/young-readers-choice-award/past-yrca-winners/yrca-three-division-winners-2011-2020/.
  28. “2013 Rebecca Caudill Young Readers Book Award: Awards List.” FictionDB, 1 Feb. 2013, www.fictiondb.com/awards/2013~rebecca-caudill-young-readers-book-award~222.htm.
  29. “Children's and Young Adult Literature: Nevada Young Reader Award.” UNLV University Libraries, University of Nevada Las Vegas, 2014, guides.library.unlv.edu/c.php?g=403811&p=2864262.


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