The Golden Hour

by Niki Smith

Overview

2021 Kirkus Prize Finalist • A Kirkus Best Book of 2021 • An SLJ Best Book of 2021
 
★ “Exceptionally graceful and delightful” — Kirkus Reviews, starred review
 
★ “A beautiful story of resilience.” School Library Journal, starred review
 
★ “Meaningful and impactful ” — School Library Connection, starred review

From the author of The Deep & Dark Blue comes a tender graphic novel, perfect for our time, that gently explores themes of self-discovery, friendship, healing from tragedy, and hope for a better tomorrow.

Struggling with anxiety after witnessing a harrowing instance of gun violence, Manuel Soto copes through photography, using his cell-phone camera to find anchors that keep him grounded. His days are a lonely, latchkey monotony until he's teamed with his classmates, Sebastian and Caysha, for a group project.

Sebastian lives on a grass-fed cattle farm outside of town, and Manuel finds solace in the open fields and in the antics of the newborn calf Sebastian is hand-raising. As Manuel aides his new friends in their preparations for the local county fair, he learns to open up, confronts his deepest fears, and even finds first love.

This title will be simultaneously available in paperback.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316540339
Publisher:	Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Publication date:	11/23/2021
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	202,110
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Niki Smith is the author/illustrator of The Deep & Dark Blue and is a cartoonist based out of Munich. She is a Lambda Literary Award nominated author for Crossplay, has been digitally published by DC Comics and The Nib, and has contributed to the Lambda Literary Award-winning Beyond anthology.

Editorial Reviews

★ 08/23/2021

After saving his art teacher from an armed attacker at school, Manuel Soto, a Latinx aspiring photographer, copes with PTSD with the help of a therapist and his single mother. Specifically, Manuel takes pictures on his phone’s camera to anchor himself during frequent dissociative episodes—dark grayscale scenes in angular, fractured panels convey these moments in contrast to otherwise painterly full-color illustrations. In art class, Manuel befriends two tablemates, both agriculture enthusiasts raising animals for the country fair. Sebastian, a white student, cares for a calf on his family farm, while Caysha, who is Black, sees to fancy chickens at her grandparents’ house. Smith (The Deep & Dark Blue) slowly builds a tender romance between Manuel and Sebastian—Manuel assists Sebastian with his calf, and Sebastian helps Manuel through an episode. With a soft start and a gentle build, Smith’s graphic novel details the realities of Manuel’s trauma response while reveling in subdued, generous scenes that showcase the three friends’ everyday joys. Back matter further contextualizes PTSD, anxiety, and the grounding techniques Manuel employs. Ages 8–12. Agent: Charlie Olsen, Inkwell Management. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly

★ 2021-09-01
After witnessing a brutal attack against his art teacher, young Manuel Soto struggles to cope with the trauma and anxiety that shadow him.

Bouts of panic attacks and moments of disassociation afflict Manuel, especially when reminders of the attack crop up unexpectedly. To manage these flashes of great unease, he uses his love of and skills in photography to anchor and ground himself. One day, he’s paired with Sebastian and Caysha, a couple of classmates, for a school project. As Manuel becomes fast friends with them, he learns more about his newfound friends’ plans to participate in the summer county fair. Spending time on Sebastian’s family’s cattle farm outside of town, as well as with Sebastian’s newborn calf, Manuel finds the space and quiet he needs to experience relief and engage in reflection. Slowly, he begins to open up to his friends about his trauma, joining in with their joyful preparations for the fair (Caysha’s fancy chickens are a hoot) and forging a deeper, more affectionate relationship with Sebastian in particular. Employing artwork that expresses sobering realism with hints of softly colorful catharsis, Smith provides a compassionate, gentle look at a young boy in the grip of PTSD and his hard-won path to recovery. Lightness lingers among the tightly paced, evenly formed panels, broken only by the dynamic, sometimes slanted, lines used to characterize Manuel’s panic attacks. Strong, good-natured characters and an endearing representation of young queer love round out a mighty sweet tale. Manuel is cued as Latinx; Sebastian reads as White and Caysha as Black.

Exceptionally graceful and delightful. (author’s note, resources, concept art) (Graphic fiction. 8-12)

Kirkus Reviews

Praise for The Golden Hour:

* "With a soft start and a gentle build, Smith’s graphic novel details the realities of Manuel’s trauma response while reveling in subdued, generous scenes that showcase the three friends’ everyday joys."—Publishers Weekly, starred review

* "Strong, good-natured characters and an endearing representation of young queer love round out a mighty sweet tale.... Exceptionally graceful and delightful."—Kirkus, starred review

"Smith weaves a beautiful story of resilience and the sweet onset of first love... A stunning work of self-discovery, vulnerability , and finding beauty beyond tragedy."—School Library Journal, starred review

"What makes Smith’s work so meaningful and impactful is the role of friends in helping to ground and encourage Manuel’s healing after he experienced such a terrifying situation. Young people need to know the lessons this book seeks to impart"—School Library Connection, starred review

"Manuel’s resilient determination to reclaim a new but satisfying normal out of his mind-spinning ordeal makes a compelling arc that is sure to keep readers engaged."—BCCB

From the Publisher

★ 10/01/2021

Gr 4–7—In the wake of witnessing gun violence at school, Manuel Soto struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and panic attacks. When a teacher pairs him with classmates Sebastian and Caysha for a group project, the ensuing friendship takes him by surprise. Manuel discovers that taking cell phone photos of Sebastian's family's cattle farm and his new friends anchors him when anxiety seems overwhelming. He joins the 4-H club to help Sebastian and Caysha prepare to show their animals at the county fair and finds the courage to enter his photography into a contest. But he struggles to convey his anxiety and PTSD to his busy single mother, instead turning to gentle Sebastian, who seems to understand Manuel intuitively, as romance blossoms. Smith weaves a beautiful story of resilience and the sweet onset of first love. Scenes at Sebastian's farm rely on warm, comforting colors; when Manuel has panic attacks, the art turns dark and suffocating as artwork bleeds out of each panel. Smith knows when to let Manuel's burgeoning artistic identity speak, leaving whole pages free of dialogue to show him carefully framing a shot or considering how to capture a sunset. Manuel and Sebastian's queer first love subplot is affirming and positive. Manuel is Latinx, Sebastian is white, and Caysha is Black. VERDICT A stunning work of self-discovery, vulnerability, and finding beauty beyond tragedy, this is the perfect primer for younger readers not quite ready for the work of Tillie Walden and Kevin Panetta.—Elise Martinez, Racine, WI

School Library Journal