How do you compare an apple to a doorstop? A cow to a bicycle? These two books could not be more different. One a graphic novel, dark, mature - looking back at a very serious time in history. The other, a nice light snack, based on a 13 year old who works in a cheese shop with her mom. She is not a particularly interesting character other than she has a pet rat, and in the end, she even lets the rat go.
Silence of Friends has a smaller audience. It is Div 4 or adult all the way. The content, a white man and black man who befriend each other in Texas during the time of Martin Luther King. One a journalist, one an activist. The language is strong, and the imagery is powerful but we could not recommend it to anyone at our school. Summer I Learned to Fly has much broader appeal. We could recommend it to Div 2, 3 and maybe even 4 but it really didn't grab me at all. The main character was not well developed and we failed to empathize with her. It had some potential but in the end, it never reached it. And the last couple of chapters were disappointing.
So..even though we found it more of an adult than a young adult selection, the Silence of Friends was a better book. Silent no more!
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