My rating: 5 of 5 stars
The trials of middle school are front and center in Otis Frampton’s “Oddly Normal, Book 1”, but unlike other young adult reads the young protagonist just can’t find any luck in either our world or the realm of Fignation. As a fan of Otis’ artwork I’ve known about his relaunch of this series for a few years, but I wish I had grabbed this book earlier than I did.
Oddly Normal, the non-magical daughter of a witch and a normal human, has green hair and pointy ears thus subjecting her to middle school hell. On her 10th birthday she wishes her parents would go away and strangely enough they do. Whisked away to her mother’s home realm of Fignation by her Great Aunt, Oddly enters a new school and finds herself back in middle school hell because instead of being a half-witch in the real world, she is a half-human in the imaginary world. And then she barely escapes an attack on her life.
This young adult graphic novel is not another story in which an social outcast goes to a new school and becomes someone special, it’s a story in which a social outcast goes to a new school and is still a social outcast…if not worse. The artwork and story by Frampton are both excellent and will draw any young reader in because at some time in our younger days we felt like social outcasts, but it seems that poor Oddly has it worse and that makes the reader want to see her overcome things and discover what happened to her parents.
If the ‘young adult’ tag puts you off personally from reading “Oddly Normal” then direct a middle school that you know towards this book and let them follow along as a green-haired, pointy-eared 10 year old tries to navigate not one, but two middle schools in which doesn’t fit.
Oddly Normal, the non-magical daughter of a witch and a normal human, has green hair and pointy ears thus subjecting her to middle school hell. On her 10th birthday she wishes her parents would go away and strangely enough they do. Whisked away to her mother’s home realm of Fignation by her Great Aunt, Oddly enters a new school and finds herself back in middle school hell because instead of being a half-witch in the real world, she is a half-human in the imaginary world. And then she barely escapes an attack on her life.
This young adult graphic novel is not another story in which an social outcast goes to a new school and becomes someone special, it’s a story in which a social outcast goes to a new school and is still a social outcast…if not worse. The artwork and story by Frampton are both excellent and will draw any young reader in because at some time in our younger days we felt like social outcasts, but it seems that poor Oddly has it worse and that makes the reader want to see her overcome things and discover what happened to her parents.
If the ‘young adult’ tag puts you off personally from reading “Oddly Normal” then direct a middle school that you know towards this book and let them follow along as a green-haired, pointy-eared 10 year old tries to navigate not one, but two middle schools in which doesn’t fit.
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