Sunny Side Up is the story of Sunny Lewin, a young girl who is packed off to Florida to stay with her grandpa for the summer during the 70s. Sounds great right? Disneyland, Sea World, the Everglades, Miami! Unfortunately, her grandpa lives in a retirement village and everyone is old... Except one boy who she befriends.
As the two young whippersnappers hit it off over a love of comics, earning money by collecting stray cats and golf balls we get more of an insight into Sunny's life and the familial strife that led to her staying with her grandpa.
The graphic novel is charmingly drawn and there is a lot of observation comedy noted as Sunny adapts to life in 70s Florida. However the book does deal with quite heavy stuff, like what an impact her brothers substance abuse and addiction has on her mental health. For a young child's graphic novel this is quite dark but I'm sure that this is a reality for many of them and I'm glad that this graphic novel deals with it in a sensitive way. There isn't a nice neat ending but that's fine as sometimes there isn't a conclusion to addiction, it's always there and this graphic novel has the maturity to treat it as such.
It is a great read and my daughter and I read it together and loved it.