Interesting to read about the childhood and teen years, and discovery of her self as an artist, by this illustrator of children's books. From the title, it seems that the main character will be named Sylvie, and not Lisette (that was a bit confusing) and that it is indeed a memoir. My middle school students will relate to the conflict between adult expectations of school focus, and what a young person really wants to spend time doing.

Between 2 and 3 stars. Sylvie and her family live in the same building where her father is the principal and her mother a teacher. In this graphic novel we get little snippets of her life as she grows from middle school through high school. It was a very choppy look at the author's life. We see positives and negatives of her home life, her siblings, the relationships with all her family and some friends, and the struggle to find her way in life. It is a unique look at the life of a child living in Paris, but also a unique look at a girl who wasn't born in Paris, is Jewish, and lives in the school. I didn't love this one. It was just okay. And I can understand the different dynamics the author was trying to show. I did appreciate the way the drawing showed the growth of the author. It was interesting to see when color came into the book. The relationships were sometimes painful to witness. As a graphic novel, I don't think my kids would truly understand what was happening, and they would be the target audience.

Thank you NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

Graphic Non-Fiction
I received an electronic ARC from Candlewick Press through NetGalley.
Autobiography of Kantorovitz's childhood and start as an artist. She shares an honest look at her family life and school struggles. Her drawing style captures the emotions she felt as she matured. Encouragement for young artists to find their own styles and be true to themselves.

I thought that this graphic novel memoir sounded interesting, but it took me a long time to get through it, because it is very slow-moving. Even though this book is 352 pages long, it does not have a plot or a character arc, and is just a series of anecdotes and reflections strung together in chronological order. Even though I love slice-of-life stories, this didn't work for me, because there wasn't enough going on, and there was never any sense of structure.

Despite its flaws as a story, this book does have several appealing elements. Sylvie's father is the principal of a French school, and when she is a child, she and her family live in the school. That was unique and interesting, and because the family is Jewish, the memoir also incorporates details related to their background. I liked this aspect, but even though the author explores her mother's mixed messages about their Jewish heritage and her own sense of social awkwardness about not sharing her peers' holidays and other traditions as a child, the story never delves into any of these topics in a deep or meaningful way.

This book also addresses different issues in Sylvie's home, such as her frustrations with her mother and her parents' martial conflict. Again, these are interesting topics, but the book only explores them in a very surface-level way. This book skims along the surface of years and years of Sylvie's life without any depth or deeply engaging content, and even though children with similar family dynamics may find it helpful to see their experiences reflected here, the book does not provide any particular insight about these problems or how to deal with them. These are just snapshots of life, with no particular meaning or message to derive from them.

Sylvie's interest in art plays a significant role in the story, but because this is a just a loose collection of anecdotes, her artistic aspirations are yet another slice-of-life detail, not a driving force in a plot. I never felt any sense of suspense or urgency for the character, even when she was dealing with her mother's dismissive comments about her interests, because the story was too shallow, random, and meandering to evoke any real pathos or interest in how things worked out for her.

I am not sure who this book is best suited for. As a child, I definitely would have found it boring, and I don't know if I would have even finished it. The primary things that I enjoyed about it, such as the cultural and historical elements, primarily appealed to me from an adult perspective, but because this book only engages with issues in a very shallow, surface-level way, it does not have the sophistication or depth to appeal to an adult audience overall.

Also, this book ends very abruptly, just when it appears that the story is about to take an interesting turn. It is possible that the author plans to produce a sequel and continue the story, but if not, this was a very unsatisfying ending. I know that it would be very difficult to end this book in another way, since there is no central plot or character arc to draw to a meaningful, satisfying conclusion, but I wish that there had been some kind of conclusion. I just went on to the next page in my ebook, and was shocked to see that there was no more.

Ultimately, this book could have been much better than it was, and even though I don't regret spending my time on it, since I learned interesting things and enjoyed the historic and cultural elements, I would not recommend it to children or adults unless they had a particularly strong interest in France, Jewish culture, or stories of aspiring artists.

"Sylvie" is a graphic memoir following the author's early years of childhood through adolescence and into the beginning of her college years.
I enjoyed the early years of Sylvie's life when she's growing up in a school. I thought those early moments were sweet. However, as an overall book I didn't enjoy this. I found it difficult to connect with the main character as so much was left out of the novel. The overall story felt very disconnected and broken up into so many different segments. It simultaneously felt as though the novel was too long and didn't say much of anything throughout all 352 pages.
I found that the overall novel was too simplistic in its storytelling. The novel tries to touch on some hard topics but never went further than surface level. I thought this book was meant to be children's book? But upon further investigation it's not? I don't know. Everything was simplistic and very abrupt, especially the ending.
Overall, this was a disappointment for me. The premise sounded great and I really wanted to love it but I just really didn't.

Thank you to NetGalley and Candlewick Press for providing me an e-arc of "Sylvie" in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you NetGalley and publishers for an ARC. All opinions are my own.

This is a sweet story about a girl finding her passion. I loved the graphic novel and illustrations, It was a fun read and easy to enjoy. I resonated with the topic of her being different and feeling as a child that she couldn't share her faith.

" I wasn't thinking about the future. I just wanted to stay forever in the safe world of my home and family."

The book begins with Lisette, our little protagonist who just moved to France with her family. Since childhood Lisette enjoyed painting. She was curious like all children and like all our mothers, even her mom agreed that everyone scoring A in an exam means the A doesn't matter much.

Mothers, I tell you (sigh!)

This is a children's book with graphic art and I enjoyed reading it. I was taken back to days when I used to have these questions and despite being from a completely different country, I found Lisette relatable.
Reading this book was fun and I enjoyed it.

The only "oommssss" the book had was maybe its length. I would have appreciated the book more if it was a little bit short.

I wish all the best for this book's publication.

The art style wasn't really for me, and the ARC seemed a bit lacking, also even though it was a memoir, it felt very children story-ish, and I didn't feel compelled by it.

I thank Netgalley for the digital ARC.

I received an advance reader copy of this book to read in exchange for an honest review via netgalley and the publishers.

This is a beautiful comic style book about Sylvie Kantorovutz and her younger years growing up. It covers her struggles, highs, lows, family dynamics, relationships, friendships, interests, schooling and studies within this book and I loved the different way of writing an autobiography in pictures with text.

This book is suitable for adults and children and is definitely worth a read. I was pulled into this autobiography and really enjoyed every page!

I enjoyed this memoir of Sylvie’s life growing up in an apartment of the school where her father was the principal. The premise is fun and relatable, following Sylvie through her adventures with friends and passion for drawing. I can relate to her struggle deciding what to pursue in life, especially when your passion and reality don’t match up. It was frustrating at times to see her parents’ lack of approval – especially being a new parent myself. I hope to remember this story and champion my child’s passions when the time comes.

The art in the graphic novel is simple, yet clear and pleasing to the eye. While enjoyable, it seemed to lag a bit at times and the ending seemed a bit abrupt. I hope that the author will come up with more so we can see how it all turns out for Sylvie.

Thank you to NetGalley, Sylvie Kantorovitz and Candlewick Press for an advanced copy of the graphic novel. #Sylvie #NetGalley

A nice and super charming graphic memoir. I love the occasional use of color. Though it is uses easy language and has a simple but cute artstyle I would recommend it for older children since some life topics could be a bit harsh (example: divorce)

Reminded me a lot of my own childhood. I've read somewhere on Goodreads that this book was messy, it's not! The drawing style changes sometimes but it wasn't disturbing. Pleasant read.

Thanks a lot to NetGalley and Candlewick Press for this ARC.

Very cute graphic novel of a young girl growing up at a school in France. The drawings were adorable but could have used a bit more color – it is a bit drab. My copy included text that was outside of the text bubbles (p.30, 52 forward), however, this may have just been because of the file type. This was very distracting when reading the book. The book was listed as Sylvie however the title of my book was Lisette. I think the majority of the issues I encountered were due to a possible translation to English. However, this was a cute read overall!

Sylvie is a graphic autobiography of the author's younger years, when her father was the principal of her school, and her family literally lived at the school.

It's a sweet slice-of-life story, with a lot of attention to details of her day to day life. She loves drawing, she loves her siblings, she hates maths and physics, and her mother couldn't be more different than her - a regular source of conflict. The art borders on the naive, and works great for telling this particular story.

Overall the story can feel a bit directionless, and why do these memoirs always end at the point they get most interesting..? (I have no idea if Kantorovitz has drawn any sequels.)

Review to come in January 2021 on blog/goodreads.

I received this book from Netgalley in exchange of an honest review.

So this one sounded really nice and I was looking forward to reading it... I have to say it was a struggle to read. Which may have to do with how incomplete and chaotic it felt.

The biggest issue is how incomplete it is. Yes, this is an ARC. But let me tell you I reviewed hundreds of ARCs in the 6 years I have had my blog... and only a handful of them were incomplete. This one had textbubbles with the text very ugly put in (you could clearly see it was a rectangle of text that at times also went over the illustrations), there were handwritten parts that were blurry/not readable, the art felt very unfinished we begin with colour art and just a few pages later everything is sketches and without colour, but confusingly at times we get some pretty art and sometimes even colour art between things as well.... So confusing. It is just a shame as it really put me off from reading. It took me two days to read this one. Two days. That is long for me.

The story was OK, it is an autobiographical story about the artist. About her youth, about her siblings (how she had a better relationship with the youngest kids than with her brother), about her parents, the clashes between her parents, but also the clashes between her mom and the kids, we see how she loves drawing and loses her time in it. We see her go to art clubs, get good grades for art, though her parents are still not always approving of it, which I found a shame. If my kid had a talent I would make sure he can develop it. Of course, also having to do other school stuff as those are important as well, but definitely making sure that my kid could grow in what they love. I loved seeing France and Paris and all the surrounding areas. It was definitely interesting to read her go through her options, to rebel against her parents, and I love that she could talk to her dad about her choices. Her mum was all you need to do x study and y study, but her dad just wanted her to be happy and feel OK.
I also really liked that she found someone to love and I loved that they made long distance work. I kind of would have liked to see if they had gotten married as this book ends after she makes her decision on becoming a teacher. It just felt a bit abrupt and I would have liked some more to this book.

But yeah, the incompleteness and the chaoticness of the book really put me off so I cannot rate the book that high. A shame. The story was pretty good and I liked Sylvie.

This was an enjoyable graphic memoir of a little girl growing up with her family in France. The stories shared about her life with her parents, her friends and her love of art were adorable. I found the art style and colouring to suit the tone of the book and it is something that I would share with my daughter.

I really felt that I knew Sylvie by the end of this graphic memoir. It's a lovely story of her life in France and her development as she became an artist. I really enjoyed this graphic memoir.

Thank you NetGalley for this ARC!

A coming of age memoir that hits all the right notes - a strained mother-daughter relationship, balancing academics and passions, exploring first love, and figuring out what you want to do next. Simply delightful.

Sylvie doesn't have much story to it. Her main plot point is that she likes drawing and wants to pursue it as a career, but also wants to balance being practical. I think there are other books out there, especially graphic novels, that already do this and have other subplots that add more story. I did find the explanation of the French educational system interesting, but there isn't much of that in here, not enough to recommend this to someone based solely on their interest in France. This book isn't relatable to American kids because it focuses on French schooling, but it also doesn't have enough explanation about French culture to make this a cultural read.

This one just didn't click with me. I like the idea of a graphic memoir for children, and it's obvious that the author put a lot of work into it. I appreciate the craft, but I just couldn't get into it. It's also pretty long for kids. I can see my niece getting bored a quarter of the way through because of her world of constant stimulation. The art is really neat, though. I like the illustration. I'm going to skip reviewing it on my platforms.