Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

A home-centered sequel to Sunny Side Up (2015), with incidents joyful and otherwise in a middle schooler's life.The tale is set in the 1976-77 school year and framed by references to TV shows of that era (both contemporaneous and reruns, including The Six Million Dollar Man, The Brady Bunch, and Gilligan's Island, with amusingly pithy show notes for each). The story unfolds in successive episodes of Sunny's self-conceived The Sunny Show that confront her with domestic challenges ranging from little brother Teddy's filled diaper ("Something Smells") to the stormy holiday visit by formerly loving but now angry, troubled big brother Dale, come home from a military-style boarding school ("Six Million Dollar Boy"). Despite such low notes, though, the general trend is upbeatwith Gramps coming up from Florida for a visit, a sisterly, Indian-American teen neighbor named Neela Singh moving in next door (adding some diversity to the otherwise all-white main cast), and a heartening if long-distance thank-you from Dale for the pet rock Sunny gives him at Christmas being particular highlights. Using a combination of short exchanges of dialogue and frequent wordless reaction shots, the Holms again leverage simply drawn scenes colored by Pien into a loosely autobiographical narrative that is poignant and hilarious in turn and emotionally rich throughout. Another radiant outing. (Graphic historical fiction. 9-11) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Horn Book
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Sunny (Sunny Side Up) begins middle school back in Pennsylvania with some trepidation; what's more, she faces it without the (complicated) presence of her troubled older brother Dale. The family drama is so, so good, resolved hopefully but honestly. The subject is manifestly serious, and the Holms respect just how dark the story can get while maintaining its mainstream appeal as a middle-grade graphic-novel comedy. (c) Copyright 2018. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.