Instead of being straight up fiction like Anya's Ghost, Be Prepared is semi-autobiographical. Vera wrote it based on her two experiences at camp, plus memories from her siblings and a former counselor.
It starts with 9-year-old Vera at a friend's slumber party. There's a great scene where they're playing with American Girl dolls. All except Vera, who's too poor to have one. She begs her mother for a birthday slumber party and knows all the right elements to it, but everything goes wrong because her single mom can't afford the right brands of cake, pizza, pop, etc. The girls manage to exclude her at her own party, not staying up and talking like they did at the other girl's. Then when Vera wakes up, they're all gone already.
She perks up a bit when she learns about a Russian summer camp and begs her mom to let her attend for two weeks. She thinks that she'll meet other Russian girls there who feel like outsiders, the same way she does. However, her little brother tags along. Not that she sees much of him and he seems to be having a great time when she does.
Camp, as it turns out, is nothing like Vera expected. Even though she's only nine, she's placed with the older campers because she's a month shy of ten. But what kind of dumbass camp would put a ten-year-old with two fourteen-year-olds? Yeesh. That goes exactly how you'd expect.
The camp itself is disgusting. There's no running water. They wash their hair and bathe in a lake. They brush their teeth in a stream. The outhouse has multiple seats and no partitions like something out of the 1800s. Vera's stuck with her only real happiness being when they'd go to the lake where there was a normal bathroom.
Everyone is forced to speak Russian as much as possible, sing songs that Vera doesn't know the words to because she threw out the songbook, and once a week protect the girls' side flag from the boys while other girls go try to get the boys' flag. The side that loses the flag has to perform a menial chore for the other side.
The older girls are mean to Vera, teasing her because she doesn't wear a bra (she's NINE) and she doesn't know what a period is.
She tries in a few ways to fit in, but all she wants to do is go home. So when her mother arrives and says she and her brother have to stay for the full month because she has a job interview, Vera is distraught.
Vera eventually turns things around for herself by making friends with a younger camper and actually being the one to win the flag from the boys' side and give them the most disgusting task. She leaves camp having made a new friend, but when asked if she wants to go back, the answer from both her and her brother is a resounding no. But that's a moot point, because that job interview? Was in London. They're moving.
This graphic novel is both funny and adorable. I've never done camp, so there's nothing relatable for me here, but there doesn't need to be. It's a solid story no matter what.
No comments:
Post a Comment