An Illness Memoir For Kids

Guts, by Raina Telgemeier, is a graphic memoir that deals with the author's childhood experience with anxiety and what she describes in a back note as digestive problems. Yes, that second part is a subject that in kids' books could lead to a lot of distasteful humor. It doesn't here. Guts does what the best illness memoirs do. It has a mystery/thriller aspect. What is wrong with Raina? How much worse will things get for her? What is she going to do?

I can't say enough about how great It hink it is that memoirs are being written and published for middle grade readers. When my children were that age, all they read in school was novels. Which was fine, but that's not what they were learning to write. They were learning to write essays. They were often asked to write from their life experiences. But they never read examples of essays or anyone else writing of their life experience.

Guts would have been a great read for them, engaging and a mentorish text.