Secret Diary: Book 1 (Lou!)

Neel, Julien

ISBN 10: 0761387765 ISBN 13: 9780761387763

Publisher: Graphic Universe ™, 2012

Synopsis

Meet Lou! She's hardly your average 12 year old. Her handmade outfits are the talk of the school (even though they make the other girls laugh), and her homework gets a lot of attention from her teachers (even though it lands her in the shrink's office). Home sweet home is an apartment she shares with her couch-potato mom and a cat named Cat. At least she can pour her heart out to her best friend, Mina, and scribble her dreams in her secret diary.

Now that she's almost a teenager, Lou's life is becoming even more interesting. Playing with dolls has lost its appeal and the boy across the street gets cuter every day. The new neighbor, Richard, just might be the perfect match for Lou's mom. But will Lou or her mom ever pluck up their courage and actually talk to their crushes?

About this title

About the Author

Award-winning author and artist Julien Neel began his career as a host of business seminars. His musical puppet show on developing management skills was unfortunately made obsolete by PowerPoint presentations, forcing him to consider a new career in music. After a tour of Europe, his band split over irreconcilable differences about food. He eventually settled in Aix-en-Provence and has joyfully devoted himself exclusively to comics creation for the past ten years or so.

Review

"In these French imports, twelve-year-old Lou ponders problems such as being teased at school, experiencing unrequited love, and having an underemployed single mom who is a writer/couch potato. The format makes them look like picture books, but the stories are told in comic panels; the dialogue and illustrations are lively, the concerns familiar (although overly focused on stereotypical romantic situations), and the characters appealing." --The Horn Book Guide

(Journal)

"Author/illustrator Julien Neel presents a comical look at the trials and tribulations of 12-year-old Lou and her family and friends. Lou lives with her video game addicted mother and their newly acquired cat. When a new guy moves into the apartment upstairs, Lou decides to play matchmaker for her mom. While the comic book pages do not flow seamlessly, the translated story does fall into place nicely. With fun, full-color illustrations, this graphic novel is able to portray the daily life of Lou in a playful manner while relaying pre-teen heartache and angst. Beginning pages present a scrapbook look that introduces the story while the ending pages present the same scrapbook format and summarize the contents of the book." ―Library Media Connection

(Journal)

"The buildings in 12-year-old Lou's neighborhood may look a bit odd, but she's surrounded by realistic people and problems―a mother who's more enthusiastic about gaming than finishing her SF novel, inept at cooking, and too shy to admit she's attracted to the guy who just moved into their building; a best friend who listens to Lou's rants, but tartly cuts them down; and a cute boy she longingly peeks at across the street, even when she notices him picking his nose. A casual, relaxed plot develops out of these characters. The action is sequential, though most pages are self-contained episodes. Design of the characters is manga-influenced―big, flexible mouths and wild hair that looks like roughly cut construction paper, for example, but the painted art is done with a rich, glowing palette. Although nominally aimed at girls, it makes for enjoyable reading for both sexes and all ages. A sequel, Summertime Blues, is also available." --Publishers Weekly

(Journal)

"A beguiling import introduces the irresistibly plucky 12-year-old Lou, a French cousin to Jimmy Gownley's Amelia McBride. Lou lives in urban France with her mother, a bespectacled writer who spends her time procrastinating and obsessively playing video games rather than working on her science-fiction space epic. Like many preteens, Lou spends much of her time thinking about clothes, boys and friends and whether she may be too old to play with dolls. Lou utterly adores her neighbor Tristan, and her mother nurtures a similar crush of her own on another neighbor, Richard. What saves Lou from complete tweenage vapidity is a well-timed sense of dry humor with a dash of non-irritating precociousness. Lou's mother can be tempestuous as an adolescent herself, leaving Lou to act as her anchor, tempering her whims and acting as a voice of reason. This humor is heightened by visits with Memaw, Lou's maternal grandmother, who harbors penchants for both brussels sprouts and conflict. A pleasing palette ranging from vibrant brights to muted earth tones fills neat, orderly panels, creating a cohesive and tidy layout; only at the beginning and end of the volume do readers actually see Lou's diary, a collage of her thoughts and information about other characters. This publishes simultaneously with volume two, Summertime Blues. This lighthearted charmer will leave readers enchantées." --Kirkus Reviews

(Journal)

"Twelve-year-old Lou lives with her single mother, an aspiring novelist who tends to play video games most of the time. Lou likes to design her own clothes despite the mean girls who laugh at her, and she has one good friend in Mina. Lou also spends a lot of time spying on Tristan, the cute boy who lives across the street; she likes him but can't find the courage to talk to him. Meanwhile, a handsome man moves into their apartment building, and Lou thinks he is perfect boyfriend material for her mother, who, like her daughter, doesn't have the nerve to talk with him. Neel's bright and colorful art matches the mood of this humorous slice of life spiced with the possibility of romance for both daughter and mother. One mostly obscured bad word and a couple panels showing Lou in her underwear and in the bathtub shouldn't be a problem for most elementary schools. The original French comic has won the Youth Prize of the Angoulême International Comics Festival. The second volume in the Lou! series (Summertime Blues) is being published simultaneously." --Booklist

(Journal)

"Lou is almost a teenager, but don't hold that against her. She's the star of a rare combination in comics: a critical success (winner of the Youth Award for ages 9-12 at the world-famous Angoulême Comics Festival) and a runaway pop hit, too, with appearances in various languages in comics and animated television around the world.

And it's easy to see why the whole world has fallen in love with her. She's a sparkling combination of spunky (she frequently takes care of herself when her mother is off being a famous writer...or playing video games) and self-conscious (does Tristan like her? Does she like him?). She surrounds herself with interesting people who see what an interesting person she is even when she doesn't see it herself. She designs her own clothes―with mixed but enthusiastic success. She moves easily among pushy friends, stylish friends, nerdy friends, and even her mother's friends with a conviction that people are basically good and ought to be able to get along. The comics are drawn with daring, using vibrant colors to match Lou's bursting personality, but when the mood turns introspective, the colors slip effortlessly into muted ambers. There's even a hint of manga influence, as the characters' faces take on whatever ludicrous proportions are most appropriate for their emotions-of-the-moment. Lou! deserves every bit of its international acclaim, and you might as well get on the bandwagon now." ―Teacher Librarian

(Journal)

"These first two installments in this series introduce a scrappy mother/daughter duo who deal with life's problems with sarcastic humor, resiliency, and their own brand of love. Lou is a precocious 12-year-old growing up with a single mother who, with an addiction to video games and her dinner-burning antics, sometimes acts more like a child than her daughter does. (The story of Lou's missing father is explained in the second book and becomesa point of suspense for future titles.) The happily unconventional family dynamic works for them, and Lou navigates through first crushes, helping her mom get a date with their cute new neighbor, and dealing with her grumpy grandmother on vacation, all with the help of her best friend and a comfortingly lazy cat. The plot moves in scenes that are broken down, but not differentiated; each spread has its own mini-story, but they are all connected and in a general sequence. There are some mature themes, such as alcohol use by the mother, but they are dealt with in a realistic manner that fits in the context. The art is cartoony and cheerful, but also illustrates emotion as necessary. Readers, especially girls, will enjoy these strong, funny charactersand the true-to-life dilemmas that they face and overcome." --School Library Journal

(Journal)

About this edition

• Publisher: Graphic Universe ™
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0761387765
• ISBN 13: 9780761387763
• Binding: Library Binding
• Number of pages: 48
• Illustrator: Neel Julien