Sunny Side Up: 11/28/19

Sunny Side Up by Jennifer L. Holm and Matthew Holm (2015) is the start of a middle grade historical fiction graphic novel series. The book is set in the summer of 1976. In flashbacks we see Sunny with her parents and brother celebrating the bicentennial. In the present, she's in Florida at her grandfather's retirement village, for reasons that are explained slowly through the narrative.

Retirement villages which first cropped up in the late 1970s, were designed to be child free zones. So Sunny is given an ID card so she can walk around unmolested. And it gives her access to the pool.

The only person her age is the son of the ground's keeper. Buzz is a known quantity and doesn't have an ID card. But he likes comics and knows the retirement village better than anyone.

Much of the book then is her adventures with Buzz. They find ways of earning money which they spend on comics. They have run=ins with Big Al, the alligator who lives in the pond.

The graphic novel is grounded in the late 1970s. As someone who was a child (albeit younger than Sunny), I can say that the Holms have gotten the details right. The Freedom Train, the painted hydrants, the clothing, and so forth.

The second book in the series is Swing It, Sunny (2017).

Five stars

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