Little Fish: A Memoir
At the beginning of Beyer’s graphic memoir, she is indeed a big fish in a small pond. A thoughtful, sensitive, well-rounded kid from the “tiny, little farm town of Paw-Paw,” Michigan, she spends her time with friends playing hockey, rocking out in her garage band, and practicing her art. But when college rolls around, she embraces change, heads for the big city, and attends art school in Baltimore. Young Ramsey is immediately stricken by the overwhelming amount of work she must complete in her first year while battling her ideological disagreements with the institution of art school, loneliness while growing apart from her Michigan friends, and homesickness. Beyer’s debut captures her introspection with earnest, appealing black-and-white panels, which chronicle her new adventures with display maps and floor plans and provide a welcome visual break from the typewriter print of her online Livejournal lists and blog posts. Wary college-bound students will find comfort in this sincere and endearing look at freshman year. Grades 8-12. --Courtney Jones