Mallory in Full Color

Leahy, Elisa Stone. Mallory in Full Color
November 19, 2024 by Quill Tree Books

E ARC provided by Netgalley
 

In this return to the Leopold Preparatory Academy in Rooville, Ohio (a fictional suburb of Columbus!), we focus on Mal, a friend of Etta and Wendy's. Mal is dealing with a lot at home, since her parents have recently divorced and her mother, Magnolia Jeong, a busy paralegal, frequently expects Mal to babysit her younger twin brothers and make them dinner. While Mal doesn't mind that much, she also needs to get her schoolwork done, and wants time to work on her web comic. Metal-Plated Heart is a story she's been working on and has posted on the Comic Koala website, run by a local comic store, even though she isn't thirteen yet. When her mother signs her up for swim lessons that conflict with a new comic club she really wants to attend at the public library, she's very angry, but doesn't say so. Mal is a people pleaser, and always tries to go along with whatever other are doing or saying so that they keep liking her. After dropping her brothers off at the community center, Mal realizes that she could easily pop over to the library for the comic club. There, she runs into Noa, a nonbinary tween who is helping set up a Drag Queen story hour. Mal really wants to be friends with Noa, and to attend the comic club, so she uses her mother's account to e mail the swim coach and say that she isn't going to be on the team. At school, Mal feels torn-- many of her friends talk about which boys are cute, but Etta invites her to attend the Gay Straight Alliance (which is changing its name to the Gender and Sexuality Alliance). While Mal has had crushes on boys', she's also had crushes on girls, and isn't quite ready to assign herself a label yet. Her friend K.K. really likes makeup, but Mal doesn't, even though to make K. K. happy, she lets her friend do her face. She even agrees to perform with Noa, even though she does not like performing in front of others. On top of these daily stresses, she still has to watch her brothers, and deal with not seeing her father as much. She overhears her mother talking about possibly moving to the West Coast to be near family, and that adds a level of stress. Not only that, but the one thing that calms her down, her web comic, has become a source of anxiety. Not only is the owner of Comic Koala contacting her and  telling her that she's getting a lot of votes in a contest, so if she wants to win she has to get her parental permission forms turned in, but people at school are discovering her comic and realizing that the characters are based, sometimes unflatteringly, on people at school. On top of that, the Read with a Queen story hour is being challenged, and is eventually canceled. Noa is crushed, and Mal and Noa have a bit of a falling out because Mal won't be honest with them. Eventually, of course, Mal's mother finds out about the swim team and web comic deception, as well as some of Mal's failing grades, and the two have a falling out, especially since Mal has been asked to take on too much responsibility at home. When Comic Koala offers to host the story time, it looks like one of Mal's difficult situations will be resolved, but will she be able to set all of the other matters in her life to right as well. 

Strengths: So many of Mal's experiences reflect the current social zeitgeist: parents over scheduling children or expecting them to serve as caretakers, children navigating living with divorced parents, several LGBTQIA+ issues, drag queen story times, and the social emotional learning topic of being true to oneself and not being a people pleaser (like Greenwald's Absolutely, Positively Natty). There's even a bit of support for graphic novels being legitimate forms of story telling when Mal's language arts teacher doesn't approve of her web comic sketches. No wonder Mal's poor head is spinning! I liked that there were some supportive adults in Mal's life, like her grandmother, who comforted her when an aunt made an insensitive comment, and also talked to her about knowing who she was and standing up to other people, and like the librarian, Barbara, who looked like a stereotypical, unfriendly white librarian but who ended up helping in several ways. I also really liked the depiction of a middle school student having to take care of younger siblings, because I think many of my students experience similar demands from parents. The inclusion of comic style panels will be an additional draw for this book. 
Weaknesses: I have found that my students struggle to understand stories that are more complicated in a way that was not true five years ago. There is a lot to process in this story, and some struggling readers might have difficulty. As important as the drag queen story hour line was, it almost deserved to be a completely different book. I would have liked to see more about how Mal's dishonesty about posting her web comic, and the way her classmates felt about being portrayed, affected her, and how her mother dealt with it, since lying to parents about social media postings can end rather badly. 
What I really think: This is a good choice for readers who enjoyed Doucet's graphic novel Art Club, or Howard's Middle School's a Drag, You Better Werk It, or those who want to return to the world of this author's Tethered to Other Stars.