All Summer Long is the kind of teen summer story I can get behind. Bina isn’t going to camp or on vacation. Instead, she’s left in town to do not much of anything. Thankfully, Bina has her music. She’s discovered a new band and is playing her guitar.

I love Hope Larson’s graphic novels because they explore strong emotions, but never the predictable ones. She’s got an amazing grasp on human nature, creating realistic, well-realized characters, and the talent to share these observations with the reader. Their interactions aren’t predictable, although they’re purposeful.

The monochrome golden yellow gives the whole thing a sun-washed atmosphere. The pages have a higher-than-average number of panels, which makes the story feel more substantial, yet they’re easy to read, never drawing attention to the skilled art techniques for their own sake.

Bina goes through some difficult feelings. She’s becoming more herself, and some people don’t get along with that, but she’s encouraged to be true to what she wants and feels, a terrific message. She finds herself in her creativity, and it’s inspiring to read about her experience and struggle.

Graphic novels are incredibly popular with my middle school students. I, and they, really enjoyed this book with the middle school issues being presented in a way that was easily accessible to them. One thing that we did have a hard time with it is the colors within the book.

Thirteen-year-old Bina is devastated when her best friend Austin decides to spend a month at summer soccer camp. She wonders: What will become of her? Will there be no fun adventures for her this summer?
With mom and dad away at work, Bina descends into a funk. Austin is pursuing his passion for soccer. Her two older brothers have moved on and created independent meaningful lives, including the imminent arrival of a birth to bless the family. Not Bina. She feels trapped.
A chance encounter sets her off in a new direction. She begins to hang out with Austin's older sister Charlie. Initially they connect because they share a love of music. Charlie needs someone to help with some chores and babysitting jobs. Bina is happy to be noticed by older-sister Charlie and begins to tag along. Eventually she determines that Charlie may be using her. Bina must decide what she want she is willing to do to maintain the relationship.
Bina wants a friend. She also must to be true to herself. The month becomes one of self-realization.

Characters are presented with a deft hand. Each is fleshed out with a distinct personality. Readers can readily identify with each one. There are no "good guys" or "bad guys," just real people in real life struggling to define themselves.

It is officially summer for a lot of us so it’s the perfect time to start looking for those next great summer reads. Hope Larson’s All Summer Long is a great pick and not just because summer is right there in the name. All Summer Long is a coming-of-age graphic novel about a girl named Bina who is realizing that sometimes growing up means accepting big changes in the way things have always been.

After spending years hanging out with her best friend Austin during the summer, Bina finds herself alone the summer after their seventh grade year. Instead of wracking up points for their self-proclaimed “Summer Fun Index” together Austin is leaving for summer camp and Bina is left behind to entertain herself. As disappointed as she may be, though, the change lets Bina explore her own love of music, make a new very unexpected friend, and have the kind of experiences she may never have been able to have before. Of course, when Austin comes back, Bina hopes everything can go back to normal which isn’t exactly how things work out.

All Summer Long does a really great job of exploring how relationships can change and how that’s okay. While Austin and Bina’s relationship is a big part of the story we also see Bina’s relationship with new friend Charlie and her family changing as the summer progresses. I think that aspect of the storytelling really speaks to readers – many of whom are likely seeing their own relationships grow and change as they get older.

All Summer Long is a very relatable story that a lot of young readers – especially middle school girls – can see themselves in. Even as an adult I could see a lot of my younger self in Bina! Her journey is very believable and organic. I love how she gets to embrace her love of music and share that with someone new while starting to explore her future as a musician and songwriter. And I love how she realizes that it’s okay to follow your dreams and even drift apart from your friends as long as you’re being true to yousrelf.

There are a lot of great lessons to be learned and shared with young readers.

If you’re looking for a great summer read for young young reader, All Summer Long is definitely one to check out! And if they end up loving it, there’s a sequel on the way that will come out just in time for the first day of school: All Together Now!

***A review copy was provided for the purpose of this review***

A lot can change in a summer and for Bina, there is a lot changing. Her best friend for life has gone to camp and changed. She's hanging with his older sister and she's about to be an aunt for the first time. All in her 13th summer. Bina faces a lot of changes in one particular summer but, like all changes that come, she weathers them and works through them. This is a great story about growing up, changing, and being true to yourself.

I have to admit that I didn't love this one/ However, my students do. I bought it when it was published and it is never on the shelf for long.

This was a great addition to our graphic novel collection. Easy read on friendship/coming of age experience. Wasn't super in love with the color scheme, but that doesn't stop it from being checked out!

This was a fun one. As always Hope Larsen's art speaks for itself. But it was great to read a coming of age story with a focus on friendships rather than romance. Well done.

A graphic novel that prioritizes a girl learning about herself and her music over finding the right dude.

I have a hit or miss relationship with Hope Larson's works, but I did enjoy All Summer Long which is her latest slice of life graphic novel. Bina and Austin have been best friends since they were babies. They are use to seeing and talking to each other all the time, but the summer before eighth grade, things start to get change and become weird. Austin’s leaving for a month-long soccer camp and leaving Bina alone for the entire summer. He rarely texts her while he's away at camp and he thinks their annual “summer fun index” tradition is dumb. During Austin's absence, Bina finds plenty to occupy herself, and focuses on her passion for music.

I was thrilled to see a female and male friendship with no romance tension between them, which is what I initially feared when I read the graphic novel's premise. I love the friends to lovers trope, but I also think it's really important for readers to see that there are strong friendships too. Larson perfectly captures the anxiety and relief that sometimes accompanies changing childhood friendships. Bina is initially adrift at the beginning of her summer, but she seems just as happy to find her own path while he’s gone. I also liked the diverse side characters found in the graphic novel too. Bina's ethnicity is vague, but it makes her story universal and approachable. I also liked the illustrations with bold, black outlines and a sunny yellow palette, which makes summer come alive for the characters and the reader.

I remember a Goodreads reviewer recommending All Summer Long to all Raina Telgemeir fans. That was enough to tempt me. Graphic novels that deal with adolescent themes are usually great fun to read, if done well. They are reminders of our past, a window to a period in life where things weren't always clear or comprehensible, Time when adults tended to do everything perfectly wrong and no one understood us, the teenagers. All Summer Long deals with one such protagonist Bina, who has an existential teenage crises at hand. Her best friend has started acting weird and gone off to a soccer camp. Her summer days are too long and very boring. What has a girl got to do to reclaim her summer?

A perfect summer read. Go ahead, give it to a teenager !

I always check out a new Hope Larson title! Glad to have more realistic graphic novels. Will be checked out and enjoyed in my busy school library!

Summer and adolescence seem to go hand in hand. Three months is a long time when you are 12 or 13 and important changes sometimes mean that friendships change. Bina discovers this in All Summer Long when her best friend, Austin, goes away for summer camp and leaves her alone to navigate the idle hours of summer on her own, unlike every summer of the past few years.

Despite her expectations, Bina keeps busy. Surprisingly, she befriends Austin’s older sister and learns some things about babysitting, boyfriends, and music. She starts practicing the guitar and develops a liking for bands like Steep Streets.

Each chapter is divided into weeks of the summer, and Bina learns and grows in many ways during her eventful summer. In almost every chapter, Bina has some poignant interaction with a family member or friend, whether it be her older brother Davey or her Dad. There is a little drama when her babysitting gig doesn’t go as planned and she gets the great advice to start a band from her favorite singer/guitarist at a concert. When Bina says she isn’t good enough to start a band, the singer says, “Starting a band is the only way to GET good enough to start a band.” That’s advice that Bina plans to follow.

When Austin comes back from camp, he seems different. He acts weird and gets angry a lot. Eventually, he and Bina get in a fight. Later, he apologizes and this leads to a conversation about how they are both changing and what that means for their friendship. The conversation doesn’t go the way I thought it would and it was refreshing to see a longtime friendship get reaffirmed in the way it does.

Larson’s artwork is clean and simple. This is a similar style used in many middle grade graphic novels where character development is the most important aspect of the book. She is able to make slight changes to faces to help you keep track of the many characters in the book. Bina is a person of color, and although we never really know what nationality or culture she is a part of, the lack of specificity doesn’t detract from enjoying her story. Larson chooses to use an orange and yellow color palette throughout the book and it is a good choice that conveys the message, “this is summer.”

All Summer Long is a nice story about friendships with likable characters that make mistakes, but they learn and grow from them. There is not a lot of big drama, but fans of Raina Telgemeier and Vera Brosgol, as well as kids looking for a breezy, fun comic, will certainly enjoy this. This could go in either a juvenile or young adult collection, and most school and public libraries will want to own multiple copies.

Does Hope Larson ever do anything that isn't insanely wonderful and perfect? All Summer Long might just be our favorite yet. It's so honest and real, and we fell absolutely in love with Bina and her story.

I'd qualify this book as more "slice of life" than event driven. Character driven, one might say. Though really, how much character development do we actually see? We are given vignettes of the awkward adolescent years, navigating long term friendships in the face of new romantic inclinations or lack thereof. I appreciated that there were no awkward crushes here.

I was unable to finish reading ALL SUMMER LONG by Hope Larson before archive date, but have since ordered it for my school library. I have borrowed a copy from my public library to finish. I do want to know how it ends.

The slow, languorous weeks of summer unfurl here for rising eighth-grader Bina in warm, muted tones of orange, perfectly capturing the rhythms of the season. Larson's dialogue feels true, with enough snappy back and forth to be interesting but not so much as to seem artificial, and her simple line-work and use of varied perspectives--close and medium "shot" panels, eye-level and bird's-eye--pulls the reader through sequences of everyday life such as learning a new song on guitar, seeing one's first rock 'n' roll show, a bumpy first attempt at babysitting, and so on. This will feel familiar to anyone who's been thirteen during the summer--just about everyone, in other words--and yet uniquely fresh, given Larson's presentation of this winning character through whose eyes we experience her small Southern California town and the people who live there.

Hope Larson always writes great books. All Summer Long is the perfect summer read for teens. I enjoyed the art, which did a great job of expressing Bina’s feelings - boredom, loneliness, hope, awkwardness. I think that people who enjoyed Roller Girl by Victoria Jamieson will love All Summer Long, too.

All Summer Long is the story of Bina as she learns to try new things and step outside of her comfort zone during her summer. As her friend leaves her for soccer camp, she feels abandoned and unsure of what to do with herself, but she starts to find out who she is as she's left behind, and meets new people that she may not have given a chance otherwise.

I really enjoyed the story here. I think it was a wonderfully relatable tale for youngster that are going into that awkward pre-pubescent phase of their lives. They're not kids anymore, and just on the cusp of being teenagers starting out fresh in high school. It's such a weird time for kids, and Hope Larson tells a story that illustrates what that's like in such a great way.

The characters were great and it strayed from conventional tropes that we see a lot of the time when it comes to stories revolving around young girls. I really appreciated that Bina wasn't super angsty and had ways to channel what she was going through (ie. her music and passion for music). She also didn't fall victim to a romance story and it was a refreshing story to read that was about friendship and really finding yourself at a tough age.

Excellent read!

All Summer Long by Hope Larson is a summer-long coming of age story that looks at friendship, gender expectations, and music. I definitely connected to this story!