School for Extraterrestrial Girls #1: Girl on Fire

by Jeremy Whitley, Jamie Noguchi (Illustrator)

Overview

Tara Smith’s parents are super strict with all their rules and routines, and Tara is a dutiful daughter. Rule #1: No friends her own age. Rule #2: keep her bracelet on, or else. But when she breaks her routine—and then loses her bracelet—she’s in trouble.
Now outed as an extraterrestrial after wielding fire and losing her humanoid form, Tara is captured by the government. She’s given two options: get shipped far away where she won’t be a danger to anyone or stay on Earth and join a school for other extraterrestrial girls like her. Things at the school aren’t easy—especially for the girl whose only friends were textbooks. But Tara’s goal to learn how to control her powers is soon sidelined by the discovery that the people she’s called Mom and Dad all these years aren’t her parents.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781545804933
Publisher:	Papercutz
Publication date:	08/04/2020
Series:	School for Extraterrestrial Girls , #1
Pages:	128
Sales rank:	491,348
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.40(d)
Age Range:	8 - 12 Years

About the Author

Jeremy Whitley is best-known for his Middle Grade series PRINCELESS published through ActionLab, which was twice nominated for Eisner awards and a three time Glyph award winner. He also has had successful runs on "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic," "Courage the Cowardly Dog," and Marvel's "The Unstoppable Wasp."

Jamie Noguchi is an illustrator from the DC metro area. He has had a successful career as colorist for UDON, Marvel, Dark Horse, and Image. He provided the art for Erfworld, which landed on Time Magazine’s Top 10 Graphic Novels of 2007.

Editorial Reviews

"A fully entertaining graphic novel for young readers ages 8-12 by the team of author/storyteller Jeremy Whitley and artist/illustrator Jamie Noguchi, "School for Extraterrestrial Girls #1: Girl on Fire" launches a fun and original science fiction series that is especially and unreservedly recommended for elementary school, middle school, and community library graphic novel collections."

Midwest Book Review

08/01/2020

Gr 6 Up—Tara, 15, has spent her whole life obeying the rules her parents have set for her. Convinced that if she follows their exacting regimen, she will accomplish great things. Tara gets her wish to become extraordinary when she inadvertently breaks her routine and spontaneously combusts during trigonometry. Tara realizes that nothing about her previous life was real and that she is in fact an alien. She's faced with two choices: get shipped back to her home system, which up until now she never knew existed, or stay on Earth and join a school for extraterrestrial girls, where she will learn how to live with both her true self and the other races of the galaxy. The characters in this graphic novel are a joy, depicted with wings, tentacles, fur, scales, and other weird and wonderful features. The palette is appealing, with bold, saturated colors highlighting the student variety and simple yet futuristic backgrounds that allow character development to take center stage. A varied panel layout advances the action smoothly and creates lots of drama. VERDICT An engaging title with an entertaining story and deft use of color and design. The clever premise will entice readers, who will eagerly anticipate future installments in this new series.—Kelley Gile, Cheshire P.L., CT

School Library Journal

The Hal Clement Notable Young Adult Books 2021 List

From the Publisher

★ 2020-05-17
A studious girl’s regimented life is turned upside down when she learns she isn’t human.

Fifteen-year-old Tara Smith has always carefully followed her parents’ strictures—dutifully completing chores and assignments, routinely taking medications, and always wearing her mandated bracelet—even though kids at school call her weird. When she spontaneously combusts during class one day, she learns that she is a reptilian alien prone to impromptu self-immolation. She is assigned to the School for Extraterrestrial Girls, an all-girls establishment for aliens seeking to prove loyalty to Earth in order to remain there. Tara meets roommates Summer and Misako, who wear bracelets like Tara’s: This hides their true forms, showing only their human defaults. When Tara reacts badly to seeing Summer’s true tentacled form, she feels too ashamed to apologize. Tara then uncovers an uncomfortable truth about Misako: that her own race slaughtered nearly all of Misako’s lineage. She tries to hide this but is outed; how can she make things right with her roommates? Exploring racism, bias, and belonging, Whitley and Noguchi’s delightful, full-color graphic novel is almost exclusively female, and their characterizations, both main and secondary, encompass a varied spectrum of body types, skin colors, and cultural representations: Main character Tara has brown skin; Summer has light-brown skin and a tall, muscled physique; Misako has Asian features; and one professor is curvy and wears a headscarf while another dons a sari.

Engaging science fiction that is fiercely female-forward. (Graphic science fiction. 9-12)

Kirkus Reviews