Reviews for Luz sees the light

Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

Luz is your typical tween. This chica loves watching TV, going to the mall, eating ice cream, and can hardly wait until she earns enough money cat-sitting to buy her coveted designer skate shoes. Luz's priorities begin to change, however, as blackouts in her town increase and gas prices start soaring. Suddenly, Luz's family can no longer afford luxuries such as driving her to the mall or purchasing expensive imported food from their supermarket. Now that Luz is forced to walk or take public transportation and to eat more affordable locally grown food, she is inspired to turn an abandoned lot into a neighborhood park and garden. While the gold-and-black-toned art is appealing, the pacing energetic, and the plot worthwhile, some readers may find the constant dialogue about sustainable living a little preachy. Nonetheless, this is a solid introduction to youth activism. For slightly older readers, an excellent follow-up and read-alike to this book would be Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg's The Plain Janes (2007).--Mack, Candice Copyright 2010 Booklist


School Library Journal
(c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Gr 3-5-Everyday scenarios teach Luz how to live with less impact on the environment. Her neighborhood experiences blackouts due to excessive electricity use, gas prices are so high that her family has to ride bikes to the mall, and her mother buys local foods at the supermarket to save money. Eventually, the 12-year-old is inspired to turn a vacant lot into a community garden. Though the story is a little didactic, Luz and her friends are an engaging and diverse group (Luz is Latina and her best friend is African American), and the cartoon-style illustrations are drawn with humor. The plain palette of black and paper-bag brown reflects the story's environmental message. This book is a good transitional reader for children interested in activism or the environment.-Lisa Goldstein, Brooklyn Public Library, NY (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.


Publishers Weekly
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Twelve-year-old Luz is a normal girl, craving ice cream and walking her neighbor's cat to save money for a much-desired pair of shoes at the mall, living in an unnamed city in the present day. But rolling blackouts, the high price of gas, and soaring import costs soon impinge on her happy-go-lucky life, and she decides to do something about it with the aid of her best friend Anika, computer nerd Rob, and hippie survivalist Gord. After learning a hard lesson about the costs of her imported shoes, Luz has a change of heart and gets everyone involved in building a neighborhood garden. Although Davila's agenda is very clear-teaching kids about sustainable food and the growing costs of energy-she delivers her message with lively, duo-tone cartooning and a likable cast of characters. An epilogue even shows how to compost. As portrayed, Luz is an unstoppable burst of activity; if there were only a way to harness Davila's drawings of her, all our energy problems would be solved. While a bit more narrative to hold together the lesson might have improved the story, this is still an enjoyable book that should inspire kids to act locally. Ages 8-12. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.


Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

A young eco-activist spreads the word in this message-driven webcomic spinoff.Showing a realistic 12-year-old's reluctance to change her ways and expectations, Luz at last sees the environmental light thanks to repeated large-scale power failures and her mother's continued complaints about the prices of gas ($7.01 Canadian, which puts this story in a very near future) and of groceries that aren't locally made. With help from friends like her comically high-strung new buddy Robert, a vegetarian and computer geek, and other neighbors, Luz goes on to convert a littered empty lot into a tidy, well-tended pocket garden/playground. Though the dialogue is anything but natural-sounding ("Good-bye, trash-infested lot, hello plant paradise! This is going to change the face of our street forever!"), Luz's infectious energy comes through strongly both in her tendency to utter grand pronouncements and in the exuberantly exaggerated body language she and the other figures display in the author's two-color cartoon scenes. Analytical readers may wonder where Luz gets all the free planters and playground equipment, or how she kept her mother in the dark until the park was a fait accomplibut internal logic takes a back seat here to inspirational rhetoric and the rewards of community organizing.A high-energy consciousness raiser, if not a practical guide to environmental issues and action.(Graphic novel. 8-10)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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