This is one of my favorite graphic novels. It centers around a middle school girl who's learning more about music. She develops this huge fondness for Maria Callas and it makes her brave.

I love the idea of little kids (and I'm sorry, middle schoolers count as little!) learning about opera. It makes me feel really happy, like maybe they're not just listening to uptempo nonsense I haven't even heard of. (This is probably the grumpiest thing I've ever typed.)

This also discusses Maria Callas a little, and basically all I knew was "legendary diva" so that was good, too. 

This is all about music and I feel like I always think about how books and movies impact me but I don't really think about that in terms of music. Part of that is because my personal pop culture choices skew heavily toward books and movies, then TV and my music choices tend to be the same artists I've loved for years and there are so many songs that can instantly change my mood (for better or worse) and I love that this book talks about that. Music is so powerful and this honors that.

If you aren't into graphic novels, this may be a fun way to start. Recommended.

This one didn't do much for me. Yes, the illustrations are visually stunning, and they create some nice metaphors (a wobbly record standing in for a wobbly voice, our heroine Charlie literally melting at a sideways glance from her crush, etc), but the story was all over the place. The plot didn't really pick up until about halfway through the book; I thought we were getting a story about how Charlie's friend Addie is too shy to sing in front of people, but then it turns into a book about the consequences of homophobia instead. I didn't care about Charlie instead; she really had nothing to do with the story and has no personality whatsoever. The Maria Callas side story also didn't mesh well with the main narrative, and the point about being true to yourself felt a little over the top. I also don't know how many teens will follow the music references, which could alienate a lot of the potential reading population. It's also a little short for YA.

I received an electronic ARC through NetGalley.
Graphic Novel.
Beautiful illustrations draw the reader in to this middle school story. The main character, Charlie, shares her thoughts on school, life and music. Her music teacher challenges his class to find their song. She struggles until he plays an aria sung by Maria Callas. This is her song. She learns about the opera star and makes the connections from Maria's struggles to those she and her friends are going through.
Maclear tells a gentle but powerful story about learning who we are and accepting ourselves and others.
Too old for the kids in my library but I strongly recommend it for middle and high school libraries.

The art work in this is extravagant! I loved seeing everything single page and I also really enjoyed the storyline. This is what I really enjoy about graphic novels, because you can really jump into the world and see it for how the author and artist intended!

Graphic novel with art work to match the beauty of the messages received by the main character, Charlie. A music assignment is given and students need to find a song to represent themselves. Charlie struggles in finding just the right song. Overall, Charlie is a character trying to find her voice as she finishes middle school and prepares for high school.

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A very interesting story that was not able to sustain my attention for the totality of the narrative. An admirable attempt.

The definition of bullying in many school boards follows this sort of formula: In order to qualify as bullying, there must be some sort of power dynamic – or “imbalance” – at play, and the bully is the one holding that power over the head of the bullied.

But, as many teachers and young adults can ask, what if the bullying is more of an overall feeling, a general tendency to universally dismiss or scoff at the bullied individual? How do you send the entire school to the office?

Operatic, a gorgeous and thoughtful new graphic novel from Groundwood Books/House of Anansi Press, explores the aftermath of this bullying, documenting the absence of the universally shunned. Meanwhile, the novel thoughtfully portrays the musical epiphany and blossoming self-awareness of the protagonist, eighth-grade Charlie, in a refreshingly authentic way.

From the start of this brief graphic novel, it is clear that the illustrations are the real strength of the piece. Two frames follow Charlie and the beautiful, quiet, beekeeping Emile as they walk through the city, their surroundings transforming into visual representations of city sound: music, vibration, horns, passing cars. These sounds grow into what appears to be a garden, forming and following them as they move together.

The characters are complex. There is Mr. Kerner (Mr K), for example, the inspirational teacher archetype who, while pushing the students to think beyond their immediate experiences and providing them with creative learning opportunities, is also woefully unprepared for the classroom bullying that ensues. His comments of “quit it” and “go to the office” clearly do nothing to prevent the tender, whimsical, and surprisingly bold Luka from disappearing from school. Mr K. assigns an inspirational music project, he plays songs he wrote in his youth (*cringe*), but Luka’s desk remains unoccupied. The days go on, the class becomes empowered by tales of Patti Smith, but Luka is still missing.

Sometimes, the trend-based dialogue (“OMG post it!”; “You slay”) is too specific for a graphic novel that hopes to reach a wide variety of young readers, but the instances are infrequent and not excessively distracting.

Another small disappointment was the lack of detail involved in narrating Charlie’s discovery of Maria Callas. Much of this short graphic novel delves into a Wikipedia-esque summary of the life of Callas, while what the young adult reader likely wants is to experience Callas through the eyes of Charlie. The illustrations come to the rescue here, as Eggenschwiler cleverly portrays Charlie and Callas as mirror images of each other at points throughout the novel. Charlie and Callas looking out the same window, Charlie playing Callas’s character on stage, etc.

Opera and middle school may seem worlds apart. As Operatic demonstrates, however, the melodrama, passion, and universality of both connect these two in deep ways.

Middle school libraries should display this book in plain sight.

Thank you to Groundwood Books/House of Anansi Press and NetGalley for the advanced reader copy of this graphic novel.

I liked this book overall but found some of the minor storylines hard to follow. The backtracking in time to provide context was difficult to follow.

"Operatic" provides good visibility for the microaggressions that middle schoolers face.

I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

#Operatic was the best graphic novel I have read so far. I loved the carefully chosen colors used in the illustrations. The story was compelling. There were so many different stories told and none of them seemed bogged down or too thin. The story was about music and finding your song. There were some curse words, but nothing that would make it inappropriate for a middle grade classroom. Thank you #NetGalley for the preview of this book to review.

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with an ARC copy.
I gave this a 3.5/5 stars.
I liked the art style of Operatic. I liked the storyline of the Opera singers life. The main characters storyline confused me it jumped around. I still did enjoy it though and would still recommend it. I liked that the main plot was about music. There was lgbt characters but we don't get pov they're side characters.

Operatic was loving drawn but the story wasn't straight forward. It mixed an opera's singers life with a modern day girl but in the end I didn't understand the girl's story. It had several tangents that didn't tie together.
I loved the look into music and how it can show us who we are. It was very thought provoking.

This graphic novel was a treat! The artwork is gorgeous and truly enhance some the story. The book explores representation of music of all genres, the art of being unseen in middle/high school, questioning sexuality, and finding your own voice. I learned a lot through this graphic novel and I think that it was extremely well written.

Thank you NetGalley for an early copy of this graphic novel in exchange for an honest review.

This is a beautifully developed graphic novel. Not only is the art to die for, but the story is both educational and easy to love.

I loved this graphic novel! It is one of the most beautiful, but also well written and meaningful, things that I’ve read in a long time. The story itself just has so much beauty and so many layers and such a wonderful message that I couldn’t help but adore every second of reading it.

Charlie is a really great protagonist. She just embodies what it means to be a thirteen year old so well, trying to find her place in the world while also trying to navigate her feelings about her classmates and her relationships with her friends and wondering why some of her classmates were such trash. I haven’t been 13 for a while but I still remember the feelings and it was so well done. Her discovery of opera and Maria Callas was so amazing to read, the feeling of finding a type of music and artist that just speaks to you is so powerful, especially when you’re young, and it’s beautifully depicted how important that was to Charlie and really sets the tone for her accepting herself later in the story.

The subplot of the disappearance of her classmate Luka and her feelings about another classmate Emile were really well done and the way they weaved together were great. I don’t want to spoil anything but the importance placed on being true to yourself and what and who makes you happy was so beautiful and I loved that Charlie and her friends were so sweet and accepting in the end.

The illustrations themselves are also just stunning! The different colour tones used for different aspects of the story was really intriguing and the way the characters were drawn was beautiful. I just loved this book, so if you’re looking for a cute story about being young and trying to find out who you really are then check this one out. I can’t get over how much I enjoyed it.

Operatic is image and angst thrown together in an adolescent-driven textual experience. Well done visual fiction I would gladly share with fellow readers.

This is one gorgeous graphic novel.

<img src="https://g2comm.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Screen-Shot-2018-12-07-at-12.20.05-AM-1024x688.png" alt="Operetic" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-4827" />

<img src="https://g2comm.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Screen-Shot-2018-12-06-at-9.40.21-AM-1024x703.png" alt="Operetic" class="alignnone size-large wp-image-4822" />

Charlie is taking a class about music, and one of the assignments is to find your song. Not quite your theme song, but the song that speaks to you. The teacher goes over all sorts of song, over the years but none of them speak to Charlie.

And then she hears Maria Callas, and realizes that she is her singer, and she listens to everything she sings. Her friends accept her for what they think is a weird obsession. And she uses Maria's music to draw out Luka, who has stopping coming to school because he showed to much of himself in class, and feels he can not sing any more.

It has all the middle school feels. Luka is a closeted gay, until he outs himself with his love song. Charlie is one of only a few Asians at the school. There are mean kids, and sympathetic kids, and as Charlie says, you just have to find your tribe.

There is a lot going on here, and is a quick, delightful read. Highly recommended for libraries and home. I wish there were more books about Charlie.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

This book was received as an ARC from House of Anansi Groundwood Books in exchange for an honest review. Opinions and thoughts expressed in this library are completely my own.

This by far has touched my heart when a girl re-discovers her path and finds a new passion. I really admire Charlie and her curiosity with trying new things from the convincing of her best friends. At some parts though when Charlie was concerned about the MIA of Luka, it reminded me of when you're in pre-school and you ask your teachers and teaching assistants what the other kids are doing and questioning their actions and they say "worry about your own self." It seemed to pick up more of the worry curious from Charlie and that could lead into an extreme situation. The illustrations were well drawn but it will attract more of a crowd if there were more colors and not a monochromatic palette but overall, this was a well-drawn well constructed novel.

This title could potentially be considered for our graphic novel collection at our library. That is why we give this book 4 stars.