Sketch Monsters: The New Kid is a well-drawn, easily digestible graphic novel (or comic book, if you’re a purist) that serves to highlight some very important lessons for the younger generation. Who doesn’t know what it feels like to be the new kid in school, doing what you think you need to do to fit in, and still eating alone during lunch? Tony learns how to handle these problems with the help of a similarly talented artist schoolmate—the heroine of the original Sketch Monsters, Mandy—and her monstrous creations. Williamson’s book will help young children understand how important it is to stay true to themselves, to do activities even if they are not the best at it, and to never bully other children. And it’s a good reminder for adults, too.

Story & Pacing: 9
At 34 pages, the story goes pretty fast. It packs a wallop when it comes to how many “lessons” are covered. The unofficial cover states that this is volume 2, but I’m not sure how many volumes will be in the series. I don’t know if it would have been better to have fewer lessons in one book, though, to make sure that readers can fully grasp the contents of each book. I would definitely read the rest of the series.

Characters: 9
Tony and Mandy are typical middle-school students. There is not enough character development—aside from Tony learning his lessons—to say much more of them. Granted, he does learn pretty quickly. But on that note, it was nice for a new character to get the spotlight and still have Mandy from the first volume around. I’m interested to see if there will be more characters in future installments or if Tony and Mandy will team up.

Setting: 8
What’s not to like? It’s set in a school.

Style & Writing: 9
Williamson does a good job making the lessons easily understandable to young children. His sentences are short and to the point. In future volumes, it may be nice to drop in an occasional polysyllabic word for a little educational furthering, but as the main purpose of this book seems to be to teach life lessons, this isn’t a make-it-or-break-it point.

Learnability & Teachability: 8
Great as a bedtime story. Good study for aspiring writers and aspiring teachers, too.

POTENTIAL TEACHABLES
For younger readers: lessons presented; symbols; predicting values presented in future volumes. For aspiring writers: predicting values presented in future volumes; creating their own story lines; evaluating use of pictures, colours, shapes, and plot line/sequencing. For teachers and teacher educators: comparing author’s intended purpose with outcome; acting out the story; crossing platforms from graphic novels to screenplays to novels/short stories. ( )