Forgive me if I’ve written his before, but todays graphic
memoirs all share a character, namely
the feeble mother. Let’s recap a little. In The Arab of the Future, the feeble
mother allows herself to be dragged to the worst country in the world; in Be
Prepared, the feeble mother is completely ignorant of her children’s
feelings; in Cub, the idiot other thinks of her daughter as a puppet and
an avatar. Now we have the memoir Stepping Stones, where the feeble
mother allows her boyfriend to verbally abuse her daughter. Feeble moms make
for a great story.
Lucy Knisley, the cartoonist who gave us the graphic memoirs
Relish (brilliant), Age of License (self-obsessed story mediocre artwork), Displacement
(better), Something New (don’t bother), and Kid Gloves (okay), is finally
looking back on her life. Stepping Stones has good quality drawing, and she
mines her life story to create a serious comic for young readers. It’s all
about moving to the country, getting used to a new environment, dealing with
new people, and having to share your new home with strangers. What I have
trouble dealing with is the adult character’s behavior.
The protagonist is Jennifer McGinnis, born in NYC (though
the neighborhood is not mentioned), who moves upstate with her mother. Now they
live on a large property that her mother is turning into a farm, complete with
chickens, a henhouse, and crops that they sell in the farmer’s market. However,
the so-called farm sees more like a large hobby garden, because I don’t see how
they could gain much in revenue from such a small farm. The chickens have an
interesting role in the story: they’re cute pets, and they’re an unwanted
chore, and they’re a source of conflict between Jen and her new stepsister.
Dealing with a new and unfamiliar adult in the house is one
of the many unpleasant issues that Jen faces. Walter the stepfather is an
obnoxious, high-handed loudmouth, legitimately annoying, and Jen believes
(perhaps correctly) that he takes pleasure in putting her down. He repeatedly
calls her Jenny, and not Jen, which she prefers. I have to wonder, what could an
adult could gain by calling a child by her non-preferred name? Does it make him
feel powerful? Is it a way to let off steam? He chews her out, browbeats her
constantly, and all this goes on under her mother’s nose. When Jen runs off
crying, her mother tries to comfort her by saying “well, he’s like that.”
In a story like this, I’m tempted to assume that Jen’s
change of scenery will be a learning experience. I’d assume that the
protagonist will conquer these nasty people, learn new skills, and go from
being the victim to the victor. Nope, that doesn’t happen. In the first scene
of the book, she explores the hayloft, finds barn kittens, brings them some
food, and relaxes by lying in the hay and drawing the kittens. Everything is
good…..until she hears her name called. It’s hard to enjoy learning, if hearing
your name is a sign of trouble.
Peer relationships are explored well in Stepping Stones.
While the stepfather is the primary antagonist, Jen’s stepsister Andrea is an
antagonist and foil combined. When we think of the stepsister in children’s
books, we tend to assume the villainous fairy tale character, or (thanks to
Disney) the ugly jealous interloper. We get the opposite of that in Stepping
Stones: the evil stepsister is neither ugly (she looks like a normal kid) nor
jealous, and I say that because she considers everything Jen is or has to be
inferior. She’s incredibly self-satisfied, and she looks at Jen as a poor and
incompetent child who needs to be helped. Andrea is an obnoxious know-it-all, a
myopic bulldozer, and her level of paternalism towards Jen is astounding. You
know for sure that she isn’t jealous, because if she sees something she wants,
she just goes ahead and takes it. On her first day at the farm, she immediately
starts naming the chickens, despite Jen’s polite protest that she already gave
them names. Andrea openly criticizes everything Jen does, and her father backs
her up, always reminding Jen that she needs to let Andrea “teach” her. This is
not a way to motivate a child. You really get the feeling of Jen’s
powerlessness, and how everyone is ganging up on her.
A side plot to the story is the farmer’s market. Jen’s
mother makes her work at their stall, despite the girl having a clear and
present case of dyscalculia, and her inability to make change becomes a big
conflict. All the while, I’m wondering about two things: first, why does she
make her daughter run the till when she knows the kid can’t do the math, and
second, why doesn’t this idiot give her daughter a calculator. When Jen goofs
up at making the change, her mother says, “you told me your father was doing
flash cards with you!” In this scene the feeble mother really rises to her
level of incompetence.
I have to wonder if this book is suitable for young readers.
There’s nothing wrong with the language, and the illustrations are great, plus
we could always do with a book about kids dealing with divorce. But who wants a
story about a kid being verbally abused? An English teacher could still use
this book a s prompt on problem-solving, and the assignment could be on how Jen
could respond to her stepfather’s remarks.
I give five stars for the artwork. They’re all done in earth
tones, and you can almost smell the grass, the trees, and the mustiness of the
ground. There aren’t any bright colors, and that’s perfect, because there’s
nothing colorful about a helpless, powerless kid surrounded by people who gang
up on her.
