Sunny Side Up Book Review

Children’s books can easily be dismissed as being simple and easy to read. It’s as if adult readers think that every one of them is about lollipops and rainbows (and throw in some aliens, dinosaurs, and horses for good measure). However, not every juvenile title is intended to be that way. Some deal with heavy handed subjects in ways that kids can relate to, don’t feel condescending, and acknowledge their negative emotions. A great example of this is Sunny Side Up by siblings Jennifer L. and Matthew Holm – a lighthearted graphic novel about a girl trying to figure out why she was sent to live with her grandfather for a period of time.

Sunny Side Up revolves around Sunny Lewin (pun slightly intended), and it’s the first book in the “Sunny” series. She has been packed off to Florida to live with her grandpa for the rest of the summer. She thinks it’s going to be great since after all, it has Disney World. Instead, it’s full of old people. Luckily, she meets Buzz – a Cuban-American kid her age who loves comics. Soon, they have adventures of their own like finding missing cats and neighbors. But there’s one question that remains: why is Sunny down here in the first place? That answer lies in a family secret.

On the surface, this graphic novel is about a girl residing in the last place she wants to be. A good chunk of juvenile books deal with this topic, but this one stands out in a variety of ways. For one thing, the graphic novel takes place in 1976 – the year of the bicentennial celebrations in the United States. One can say that this is an allegory to Sunny’s independence with this solo trip even if she doesn’t feel all that. Another thing is the characters’ appreciation for comics. Through Buzz, Sunny gets in a lot of them, especially the superhero ones. When she and Gramps meet his family, Buzz’s dad – a Cuban immigrant – reveals that comics helped him to learn English. These kinds of reading materials have gotten a lot of flack over the years for a variety of reasons, so it’s good to hear stories of why people are drawn to them.

Now of course, I have to mention the main reason why Sunny Side Up is unique. Throughout the book, Sunny remembers what led up to her going to Florida, as to ponder why she’s there in the first place. Through these flashbacks, readers get to know Dale – her older brother – as he spirals out of control due to substance abuse. He is depicted with brown, gray, and dusty green colors and usually up to no good. At one point, he shows up drunk at a Fourth of July event and punches Sunny in the shoulder in a non-sibling way. 

She thinks that what happened to Dale was her fault, and all she wants is her family to tell her the truth about what’s going on and her brother to be himself again. Speaking of secrets, although Gramps has quit smoking, Sunny quickly finds cigarette packs in his villa at the retirement facility. She reasonably gets angry at him for it. It’s through the confrontation with Gramps about his smoking that he reveals why she’s in Florida to begin with. The latter point with Dale is illustrated when he teaches Sunny how to drive in a parking lot even though she’s only 10. This comes in handy when she and Buzz are looking for Gramps’s dementia-laden neighbor, and she drives a golf cart onto the street to find her.

The graphic novel succeeds in dealing with the topic of substance abuse through the eyes of someone who’s indirectly affected by it. Sunny tries to figure out why while trying to keep Dale’s problems a secret from their parents. In addition, Sunny’s feelings of being responsible for his addiction is believable. Kids who deal with abuse in some form go through these emotions as a way of coping, especially if they are not being told the whole truth. The book doesn’t dive deep into Dale’s addiction, but that’s not the point. The main gist is to tell the story of a person who knew someone with an addiction. In addition, the book starts off lighthearted and goofy, but it gets into the darker stuff as it progresses. This is a good way of getting into a serious topic. It’s like slowly swimming from the shallow end to the deep one. Moreover, it helps that the happy tone is maintained through the novel even if it has dark humor even now and then. For example, when Sunny tries to play “Marco Polo” in the pool at the retirement facility, an elderly man retorts that Marco died of a heart attack.

Also, it turns out that the Holms siblings actually knew a family member who dealt with addiction. In the afterword, they strongly advise kids to talk to someone about it in order to share their feelings.

Since this is a graphic novel, I have to talk about the illustrations. There’s a nice use of color. It relies mainly on light pinks, blues, and yellows. This is true with Sunny herself as she’s often wearing a pink shirt and blue shorts as well as sporting short blonde hair. As mentioned earlier, Dale is often depicted with hues like browns, greens, blacks, and grays to hint at the heavier elements of the book. As for the main location at the retirement facility, it’s depicted with often muted oranges, browns, and tans with some blues and greens sprinkled in there. This shows how boring the place is for Sunny.

Overall, Sunny Side Up by Jennifer and Matthew Holm is a great story about a girl trying to uncover a family secret while getting used to living with her grandfather for the time being. It balances the soft and heavy elements effortlessly, while still being entertaining. I would recommend it for kids who love graphic novels and fish-out-of-water stories as well as for those who know people dealing with substance abuse. This book can also be a first step in talking about how kids are affected by drugs and alcohol.

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