The Isobel Journal

by Isobel Harrop

Overview

This quirky, narrative scrapbook gives readers a witty, honest look at what it means to be a teenager. Using mini-graphic novels, photos, sketches, and captions, The Isobel Journal offers a unique glimpse into the creative life of eighteen-year-old Isobel, just a northern girl from where nothing really happens.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781630790035
Publisher:	Capstone
Publication date:	07/01/2014
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.90(d)
Lexile:	680L (what's this?)
Age Range:	14 - 18 Years

About the Author

Isobel Harrop is an eighteen-year-old girl from the North of England, squished somewhere between Manchester and Liverpool. She's just finished school, where she studied English Literature, English Language, and Media Studies. She's got her fingers crossed to go to university next year to carry on doing English Literature somewhere a bit more interesting. This is her first book that wasn't made using the school photocopier and staples. Inspired by Peanuts comics and 1960s design, Isobel loves to draw whenever she gets a chance, and almost every piece of her schoolwork is scrawled all over with drawings of imaginary people. When she isn't working or drawing, you might find her fawning over cute animals on the Internet (especially sea otters!), eating vast amounts of chocolate in all its forms, and collecting stuff that she doesn't need from vintage shops.

Editorial Reviews

09/29/2014
Harrop, a teenage blogger from northern England, presents a stream-of-consciousness journal/scrapbook. In pages filled with her own drawings (both sketches and collages with photos and postcards) and ephemera (such as a ticket from a miniature railway), she muses on friendships and boys ("I've invented a phrase which I hope all teen girls will latch on to: boy high. Noun: OMG we texted all day, I'm on a total boy-high!"), thinks about role models ("I wish I had half the sass of Debbie Harry"), and offers tips on daily life ("When riding your bike in a skirt, my top tip is to wear old exercise shorts underneath to confuse passersby"). Younger YA readers will probably find this to be a fascinating, sweetly funny, and relatively unscary introduction to teenage life; older readers may lose patience with Harrop's manic pixie girl persona and wonder why she has little to say about the world beyond cute animals and boys. Her one attempt at bigger issues is the headline: "Feminism: Why Not?" and a drawing of hairy legs. Ages 14–up. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

07/01/2014
Gr 7 Up—Blogger and Tumblr fan Isobel Harrop, 18, shares her thoughts and insights on the highlights of her life. Through a scrapbook-type journal—much like the one teens may have by the side of their beds—full of drawings, taped-in pictures, and ticket stubs, Isobel tells readers about her desire to make beautiful things, and her difficulty fitting in with the arty kids. She shares her feelings on love, wanting to put forget-me-nots inside her crush's head; and breakups, hating boys who make fun of things she likes. The slightly moody, artistic, confused young adult narrator embodies most teen readers. Reminiscent of Tavi Gevenson's "Rookie Yearbooks" (Drawn & Quarterly) and Jessica Anthony's Chopsticks (Penguin, 2012), this creative mixed-media work by a UK teen will devoured quickly—and will inspire readers to created their own illustrated notebooks. For those who are ready to move past Rachel Renée Russell's "Dork Diaries" (S. & S.) —Sarah Knutson, American Canyon Middle School, CA

School Library Journal

2014-05-14
Glimpses of the life of the titular Isobel, who sees herself as "just a girl from where nothing really happens," presented as a charmingly idiosyncratic scrapbook.Divided into three sections—Me; Friends, Otters, College & Art; and Love—the journal is immediately immersive, placing readers directly into Isobel's world. It assumes those readers are sympathetically thumbing through its pages, nodding and saying, "oh, me, too!" The narrative is very loosely structured around Harrop's life-as-inner-monologue, filled with references to Beyonce, friends, British pop stars, thrift shopping and tea. Readers meet family members (but only as a point of reference), and though Harrop sketches her friends, imbuing each miniportrait with real personality and a rather Sendak-ian verve, they don't play roles in any anecdotes or stories. Indeed, the entire concept of story is beside the point here, as Harrop's work reads like a Tumblr re-organized by hashtag rather than by date. Although most illustrations are by hand and Harrop includes pages scanned in from her actual diary, the overall conceit is of an online commonplace book brought into print. Some readers may wonder about the point of such an exercise. These readers are not the intended audience, who will see themselves, their interests and their remix approach to life reflected in the many pages of impossibly cute animal drawings and Lauren Child-like collages of sketches and photographs.A trifle—but a sustaining one. (Graphic memoir. 12-16)

Kirkus Reviews