Skim (Hardcover)

~ Mariko Tamaki (Author), Jillian Tamaki (Illustrator)
Key Phrases: Julie Peters, Katie Matthews, Anna Canard

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This auspicious graphic novel debut by cousins Mariko and Jillian Tamaki tells the story of "Skim," aka Kimberly Keiko Cameron, a goth girl in an all-girls school in Toronto, circa the early '90s. Skim is an articulate, angsty teenager, the classic outsider yearning for some form of acceptance. She begins a fanciful romance with her English teacher, Ms. Archer, while nursing her best friend through a period of mourning. The particulars of the story may not be its strong suit, though. It's Jillian's artwork that sets it apart from the coming-of-age pack. Jillian has a swooping, gorgeous pen line-expressive, vibrant and precise all at once. Her renderings of Skim and her friends, Skim alone or just the teenage environment in which the story is steeped are evocative and wondrous. Like Craig Thompson's Blankets, the inky art lifts the story into a more poetic, elegiac realm. It complements Mariko's fine ear for dialogue and the incidentals and events of adolescent life. Skim is an unusually strong graphic novel-rich in visuals and observations, and rewarding of repeated readings. (Feb.)
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From School Library Journal

Grade 10 Up–Kimberly Keiko Cameron–aka Skim–is a mixed-race high school student struggling with identity, friendships, and romantic yearning. After her parents' divorce, she turns to tarot cards and Wicca to make sense of life but finds herself disappointed with the lack of answers they provide. She finds herself increasingly intrigued by Ms. Archer, her free-spirited English teacher. Her interest becomes obsessive and it begins to drive a wedge between her and her best friend, Lisa. Although Skim originally makes light of the half-hearted suicide attempts of popular Katie, whose ex-boyfriend committed suicide, the two of them begin to open up to one another. Skim soon realizes that perfect Katie is far funnier, more genuine, and more traumatized than she originally thought–particularly when it comes to light that John shot himself due to his homosexuality. Drawn in an expressive, fluid style and with realistic dialogue, this work accurately depicts the confusion of teenage years, with its rejection of previous identity and past relationships and search for a newer and truer identity; additionally, insider/outsider status is a reoccurring theme. Skim's internal monologue is diarylike, with an interesting use of scratched-out words. This is a good but somewhat standard work.–Dave Inabnitt, Brooklyn Public Library, NY
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Young Adult
  
• Hardcover: 140 pages
• Publisher: Groundwood Books; 1St Edition edition (February 28, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0888997531
• ISBN-13: 978-0888997531
• Product Dimensions: 10.4 x 7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #60,840 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars gorgeous, sophisticated, and deeply truthful, September 1, 2009

By	NYC Reader (New York, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Skim (Paperback)

SKIM is gorgeous. Canadian cousins Mariko and Jillian Tamaki are to be praised for such smart, sensitive, sophisticated treatment of unyielding material. Coaxing a suspenseful, surprising, hopeful narrative out of the anti-narrative horror of high school is no easy feat, but coaxing one out that remains true to the recursive slowness of the experience, the smothering isolation of it-- AND leaves you cheering for the heroine in the end-- is all the more impressive.

The Tamakis explore the complex experience of their heroine, Kim Keiko Cameron, by tapping the full potential of graphic novels to offer the reader multiple channels through which to take in information. The verbal line of the novel, with two magnificent exceptions, is the reader's primary guide through the lesbian strand of Kim's experience, while the visual line, with one heartbreaking flashback, is the primary medium through which Kim's Japanese-Canadian heritage is given witness: her mother breaking noodles, her father's thing for Asian women.

Most arresting, visually, is Jillian Tamaki's choice to give Kim the face of a traditional Japanese beauty. Short eyebrow-smudges high on the forehead and long loose hair, along with a small mouth, very rounded cheeks, and a low-placed nose are all markers used to indicate Heian-era female beauty from Tosa's TALE OF GENJI illustrations to Noh Ko-omote masks to traditional Otafuku and Benten imagery. What's canny, and oh-so-true to the tenth grade experience, is that Tamaki takes this marked-as-beautiful face and places it in a context-- an almost entirely white Canadian girls' private high school-- that completely invalidates its beauty.

Among the many riches SKIM has to offer is the chance to witness Kim's coming-of-age as a critic, which is inextricably bound up with her coming into her own as a lesbian. When Kim discovers for herself (and a lame date) precisely what strikes her as inadequate about ROMEO AND JULIET, in a way that both emerges organically from and radically illuminates the whole story we've been reading, it's a moment of breathtaking mastery on Mariko Tamaki's part.

Brava to Mariko and Jillian Tamaki, and here's looking forward to more from each and both of them.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars thought-provoking, for older kids only (teens), June 8, 2009

By	Debra Anderson (NEW BERLIN, WI United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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This is worth a read, quite sophisticated for a book with a primarily teen audience. Adults who appreciate a good story, good graphics, and teenage angst (non-melodramatic) can appreciate this graphic novel. It will also appeal to many kinds of teens - those struggling with conformity, nonconformity, identity, traditional religion vs nontraditional, body image, sexual identity - well, ok, to all teens, if they have a contemplative side. The author is sympathetic to the needs of teens to rebel and yet doesn't glorify it.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fabulous illustration style and great text, January 19, 2009

By	Geng Wang (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I am both into the illustration as well as the story (admittedly probably more into the former). Jillian Tamaki is a great illustrator and this work shows her well versed skills in brush/ink and how to combine the cinematography/composition with the storytelling. As for the story, it's about high school teenage girls and maybe not 100% targets me as the right audience but the humour and wit makes me smile from time to time while reading. I was hoping there was little bit more into the last half of the story.