Chernobyl, Life, and Other Disasters and My Sister the Freak

Nayberg, Yevgenia. Chernobyl, Life, and Other Disasters: A Graphic Memoir

April 14, 2026 by Neal Porter Books

ARC provided by Young Adult Books Central

Born in 1975 in Kyiv, Ukraine, Genya struggles with many things in her life. Her father has gone to the US, so she is not allowed any contact with them. While her grandfather, a gerontologist, and her grandmother, an engineer, are very supportive, her mother, an artist, thinks that many of Genya's ideas are "banal", and doesn't hesitate to tell her so. Despite this, Genya decides that she wants to be an artist. A critical step in this is to take the exam for the Secondary School of Art when she is 11. Her mother doesn't think her artwork is as good as it needs to be, especially since the family is Jewish, and the Academy takes very few Jewish students. Genya is tutored along with Kolya and Vera, and must practice painting a scene from the news over and over, and must master the "academic art" style before she can experiment on her own. She also has to deal with new stepfather Leon as well as a baby brother. When the Chernobyl nuclear power plant experiences a meltdown in 1986, Genya's family is very concerned about the radiation fallout, even though their city is 90 kilometers away. Genya's mother demands not only that all of the rugs are thrown out because they might capture radiation, but also that Genya's long braid that she has been growing for five years be cut off. The school even arranges for all of the students to spend months at a summer camp, but a cousin of her mother's, Aunt Elena, offers to let the mother and two children stay with her and her husband and daughter, Masha, in Volgograd. It's crowded, and Genya is afraid that she will not be able to return to Kyiv in order to take the art school exam. She is able to, and eventually the family is able to return home. When Leon borrows a Geiger counter from work, and the braid that Genya has secretly saved sets it off! 

There have been several books about the Chernobyl meltdown, including Marino's Escape From Chernobyl, McGowan's Dogs of the Deadlands, and Blackman's The Blackbird Girls, but I haven't read anything as close to an eyewitness account as this. Of course, since the author was young, there is a focus on her own life, and the information about Chernobyl was not easy to find at the time. I loved the detail about her braid; that definitely sold me on the value of seeing a disaster through such a personal lens. 

Eastern European drawing has a rather distictive look to it; I kept thinking about Yelchin's The Genius Under the Table, which takes place a decade before this book. It has a more raw, unfinished feel to it and is angular in surprising ways. The ARC I read was in black and white, but the finished book will be in full color, and the two pages that were rendered this way had a nice watercolor feel to them. 

It's always fascinating to see what artists feel compelled to share in graphic style memoirs. Include this in a group of global reminiscences that includes Huang's  Singing Yellow Sail: A Memoir of an Only Child in China, Chang's How to Draw a Secret,  Chan's Uprooted, Martin's MexiKid, Russo's Why Is Everybody Yelling,  and Kantorovitz's Sylvie. 

Jones, Dani. My Sister the Freak

April 14, 2026 by HarperAlley

E ARC provided by Edelweiss Plus

Mary and Al are sisters, but have wildly different interests. Mary is in middle school, and is bringing her own unique spin to her role of a monkey in the school production of The Wizard of Oz. Al is in high school, has just accepted an invitation to a school dance, and doesn't want to deal with Mary's noise and general weirdness. When their parents have to visit their grandmother who has had a fall, Al says she can hold down the fort in her absence. She goes out with her friends, and Mary tries to follow her. She is attacked by monsters, but wakes up in her own bed. Al is dealing with her unpleasant friend Camryn's plans for the dance, which involve unattractive dresses. There are more monster attacks, but only the school custodian believes Mary. When Camry is dumped, she asks new boy Patrick to the dance, and he agrees to go only if his sister Meg can go as well. Camryn thinks Meg is too drab to hang out with, but she and Al share several interests. There are secrets revealed about Al, as well as Mary's teacher Mr. Fine, and an epic showdown at the performance of The Wizard of Oz. In the end, the sisters make peace with each other and Meg and Al go together as a couple to the dance. 

I recognized Jones' work from the FrankinSchool series, and she certainly draws very effective monsters. This is a good choice for readers who enjoyed other graphic novels like Graley's Glitch and Davault's Misfit Mansion.