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My Own Lightning (Wolf Hollow 2), by Lauren Wolk (2022)
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Premise: After getting struck by lightning, a 1940s Pennsylvania girl begins to see the world—and people—around her differently.

Review: With the first book in this series being such a triumph for me, I was a bit unsure what to expect with this sequel. But wow! I think I like it even more! Cont.

There is something so compelling about graphic novels, and this one was so so good! I loved the ways that the art corresponded to the words on the page to create such an interesting and immersive story. Like I mentioned for “Flying Lessons“, using texts such as this that explore new mediums with our students can make such a huge difference in their journey as an English student. Pedro Martin is an amazing storyteller and I loved every second.

This was a really lovely middlegrade read. Ellen is on a class trip to Barcelona. She's Jewish, she's autistic, & she has a great dad. But she feels like her best friend is pulling away from her. When they get put on different teams for a group project, she has to learn how to make new friends & set boundaries in her relationships. There's also a new classmate who uses they pronouns, who makes Ellen think outside the binary categories shes used to

I think if it weren‘t for the graphics I wouldn‘t have really enjoyed it at all. As the story continued I started to get a little disconnected because of the dialogue being so young. I can definitely see elementary students eating this story up especially Hispanic kids who can relate to Pedro‘s family dynamic. So, It‘s important to be willing to read about different cultures and their life experiences to have more broad perspective of life.

I love how we are getting to see some of the unfortunate realities of the world through the eyes of a child. For, example when the family is crossing the border into Mexico and they get some of their stuff stolen by the guards and the dad is trying to talk their way through that tense situation. It got so real! To experience something like that as a kid had to of been very frustrating and confusing.

I had never heard of a graphic memoir before and I was so surprised that this isnt done more often! Actually being able to see the family and looking at how their personalities are shown through the images made it much more fun to read! This is a great way to get younger audiences more interested in reading and to stay engaged with the story.

I really enjoyed this book! I loved the graphic novel approach the author took to write his memoir. This novel would be a great mentor text for students, as they could then create their own graphic novel/comic strip memoir and see that not all graphic novels have to be fictional! I think it would also be a great alternative for students who don‘t particularly like reading wordy books!

I love the way Pedro thinks about his grandfather, and how their relationship is developing. From someone he was wary about getting to know, and sharing a room with, to his own personal superhero. I also love how his grandfather interacted with him and joined in his drawings. So cute!

From just the summary, this seemed uninteresting to me at first, but I was endeared by this rich story and the Martín family's mission and antics. The characters were so lovable and I felt that they were a very realistic representation of a complex family. There were silly moments but also down-to-earth ones which brought topics like family, identity, war, and loss into the spotlight to learn from. This would be a great graphic novel to teach!