Glitch, written by Sarah Graley, reviewed by Kalie Mehaffy

Summary: Izzy and Eric are two young girls who cannot wait for the school week to end so that they can play the most anticipated new game - Dungeon City. They are planning a huge sleepover weekend while Izzy's parents are out of town where they'll eat an entire pizza and play the game together, and Izzy promises to not play the game until the weekend, so that she can play with Eric. The temptation of a shiny new video game, however, is too much for Izzy to resist, and she boots up the game the night it arrives at her house, but as the game starts, she finds herself sucked into the game! The rest of the story follows Izzy as she plays the game while in the game, while alienating her best friend Eric due to guilt and slowly realizing that things may not be as they seem in the game.

Straight Talk for Librarians: I thought that this was an amazing graphic novel! The art style is bright, colorful, and fun; and the story manages to be humorous while still touching on serious topics. For example (spoilers ahead), Izzy and Eric have a falling out - Izzy feels guilty that she is lying to Eric by playing the game, and lashes out at Eric while refusing to admit that anything is wrong. This, of course, upsets Eric, but by the end, after Izzy comes clean and apologizes, Eric tells her that it was okay, because Izzy made a call that in retrospect was wrong, and that since Izzy admitted she made a mistake they were going to be okay. It was heartwarming, and a mature way to look at arguments with friends. I think it is hugely important for anyone, but especially a middle school student, to see examples like this one. I think that you could use it in the classroom if you were teaching a social skills lesson, but this is absolutely a graphic novel that I will be putting into my library. I think my students will love it as much as I did.