A book by the prolific Jennifer Holms and her artist brother Matt, who also do stuff for younger kids like the very successful Babymouse and Squish. Jennifer does a range of books for different ages. This one I would say works best for 3rd through 5th graders, based on my limited family sample of just that age group. Well, the boys read this, not the girl (yes, they have read Nimona and Lumberjanes and other "girl" books and liked them a lot), and Henry (8) gave it 5 stars, Harry 3.5, though bot...

E ARC from Edelweiss Above the TreelineIn this graphic novel, Sunny is ten years old in 1976, and is sent from her home in Pennsylvania to spend time with her grandfather at his retirement community, Pine Palms, in Florida. There are few chidlren her age there, although she does befriend Buzz, who is the son of the groundskeeper. She and Buzz read comic books, rescue old lady's cats for pocket money, and go swimming. With her grandfather, Sunny goes to Early Bird Special Dinners and has to put u...

3.5 starsFinished this one as well! Just in time too :) Happy New Year everybody!

My 9-year-old says "three stars," and I agree.

"Sunny Side Up" is the story of Sunny's summer stay with her grandfather in FL when she is around ten years old, and things are tough at home. The story goes back and forth in time to show events leading up to her trip to FL, which starts out shaky, but gets better as she makes a friend her age and goes on lots of adventures and reads a lot of comic books, and as she gets closer to her grandfather and finds herself more and more able to connect with him and the his peers at Pine Palms (a retirem...

Graphic novel tells the story of Sunny who is ten and sent to spend the summer at her Grandfather's in a retirement community in Florida while her parents deal with her older brother Dale's drug addiction. She meets a new friend who is a big fan of comic books about superheroes. The two kids help find lost cats and have other adventures with the old people. Sunny is sad about keeping secrets and feels her brother's addiction is her fault. It doesn't help that her grandfather said he quit smoking...

Yay, good, great for the Telgemeier/Bell/Gownley fans. Although the Holm team are stars in their own write (heh heh, see what I did there?).This one got darker than I was expecting. I enjoyed the Florida Retirement Center from a Kids Perspective story, and then it got to the potentially triggering content, and it felt a little out of the blue (even though they've been alluding to it throughout), tone-wise. I liked her friendships with the other kid on campus, and the residents themselves. I supp...

Young Sunny is spending a summer in Florida with her grandpa, while family problems simmer back home in Pennsylvania. Between searching for the missing cats of the retirement community residents, and spending time reading comics with another young chap, Sunny has a memorable, not-too-boring time.I enjoyed this one quite a bit.

2 stars - it's ok. The illustrations don't add any richness or depth to the story, and so it's a very fast and simplistic read. Remember when sitcoms were mocked for tackling and resolving a challenging issue in 24 minutes? This is even more, erm, concise, as it tackles Cuban immigrants, senility, cigarette addiction, feminism (the girl discovers comics and, while she focuses on different elements than the boy, does decide that she's Batman, not Wonder Woman, when they play), and the Big issue.

Rating 4This book was super cute! I loved the illustrations and the relationship the main character had with her grandpa. Perfect book to wrap up Summer with.

4 stars!A cute story with some more serious undertones. Sunny Side Up is the story of a young girl who is sent to Florida to spend the summer with her grandpa. Placed in the 70's, she finds Florida to be boring. Meanwhile she flashes back to months before where her and her family watched her teenage brother spiral out of control with substance abuse. I think this is an important book for tweens to have available as they can relate to Sunny. It also shows addiction as something that shouldn't be

"What superpower would you want?" -- Buzz"Invisibility." -- SunnyMatter-of-fact graphic novel that alternates between the amusing and the bittersweet, Sunny Side Up centers on the plucky blonde ten year-old Sunny Lewin. A native of suburban southeastern Pennsylvania (woot-woot!), she is suddenly shipped off to spend August of 1976 with her widowed grandfather at his retirement cottage in quiet Vero Beach, Florida. (The reasons for Sunny's parents sending her away for a month soon become clear vi...

As most of my friends probably well know by now, I am generally not all that much a fan of graphic novels as a genre. But after having read a few online reviews of Jennifer L. Holm's (narrative) and her brother Matthew Holm's (illustrations) Sunny Side Up I finally decided to download it on my iPad, as from the book description, this middle grade graphic novel is set in 1976 and indeed with young Sunny, also features a main protagonist who exactly like myself was ten years old in the summer of 1...

Anyone who thinks that nothing serious or good happens in graphic novels and that they're not worth reading needs to reconsider. (I'm looking at my daughter's 3rd grade teacher here.)

A different sort of summer for Sunny. Sunny is spending the summer with her grandfather who lives in a retirement village down in florida. There are no kids around and no one to play with and grandpa's idea of an adventure is going to pick up his pills. There are some funny cute things going on in this story. The meat of the story is told in flashbacks. We see Sunny and her brother and the trouble the he is getting into. He is addicted to alcohol and we find out that Sunny was sent down to her G...

Siblings Jennifer and Matthew Holm, best known for the Baby Mouse series, create a fabulous graphic novel that follows 11-year-old Sunshine “Sunny” Lewin when she’s dispatched to spend the summer with her grandfather in West Palm Beach, Florida, in 1976. Days with Gramps at the Pine Palms retirement community are pretty boring: They’re hundreds of miles from Orlando and Disney World, and there aren’t any other kids at all — until Sunny meets Buzz, the Cuban gardener’s son. The Holms’ Sunny Side

Oh, the joys of time travel! This story takes place in 1975 and 1976, and it was so pitch perfect that I was laughing in recognition within pages.The story itself is about Sunny's unplanned summer visit with her Gramps in Florida. Flashbacks reveal that Sunny's brother, Dale, has a drug problem that impacts his entire family. Not at all preachy, especially when Sunny and Buzz find lost cats and keep getting rewarded, this graphic novel shows the importance of talking about your feelings with som...

A breezy Middle Grade single-sitting summer read about a girl who goes to Florida to spend the summer with her Gramps. The book is semi-autobiographical, features nice colored illustrations and is targeted to help kids cope with a close family member or friend dealing with substance abuse.It took me more than one sitting though, coz I was jet lagged and kept passing out! :PBOOM!

It's August of 1976 and ten-year-old Sunny arrives in West Palm Beach, FL, to spend a month with her grampa. He says he has "big plans" and then they do things like go to the post office, the grocery store, and the early bird buffet. Sunny dreams of Disney World, but the two hour drive seems an impossible dream -- even though Grampa's car "Bertha" has 200 horsepower under the hood. As a child of the 70's, this book is a blast from the past. There is even a nod to the bicentennial celebration. Al...

I enjoyed reading Sunny Side Up by Jennifer and Matthew Holm. At first, I wasn't sure where the story of a young girl visiting her grandpa was going. But, in the end, I was moved by her experience and the relationships she formed. If you enjoy books like Smile and Roller Girl, you will enjoy Sunny Side Up. It's a meaningful story with engaging illustrations.