This was adorable and wholesome and exactly the kind of graphic novel I love to put in my classroom.

When I recommend this book, I'm going to tell readers to start with the afterward because this is a book that needs a playlist. Or, I hope, readers will build the playlist as they get to know Luci Sutcliffe and her friends. LUCY IN THE SKY is a great middle-grade graphic novel that illustrates the changing dynamics of friendship, family, and school. Vibrant illustrations flush out the world and characters. This is truly an all encompassing reading experience that many kids (and adults) will love.

It was a very sweet ànd interesting reading, I love Lucy and the way she navigates through her adolescence, feeling of loneliness and overwhelming changes. She a sincere teenager,sometimes sweet, sometimes bitter, and her life, alongside with her Beatles' discovery is so cool. I learned so much about the band, and remembered my own time as a teenage.. I recommand the book to anybody wishing to reconnect with it"s younger self.

"Lucy in the Sky" is a charming graphic novel for middle graders. Lucy decides to start a band with her friends after discovering her dad's old Beatles records. However, she must also wrestle with growing up, friendship troubles, a first crush, changing family dynamics, and illness in her family. Lucy shows a lot of growth and development throughout the book, and I think young readers will be able to identify with a lot of her struggles.

There is always a place for more graphic novels in my library, and this one is sure to please many of our readers. I look forward to purchasing it for our library.

Fun new comic about life, music and the travails of friendship and growing up. You will sing through the whole book. Perfect for readers of Hale and Telgemeier.

A girl connects to her father through music and forms a band, inspired by The Beatles. Lucy is a seventh grader who's having a rough time: she feels like her single dad isn't enjoying his life enough; her globe-hopping photographer mom isn't around, and her grandmother is undergoing chemotherapy. Things change when she discovers a box of her dad's old albums, particularly his Beatles records. They open up a new world to her, a world she can escape to when the real world is too much. Inspired to create music, she and her friends form Strawberry Jam, but - just like The Beatles - the collaborations aren't always smooth. Relationships are hard, as beautifully communicated here. Lucy is conflicted about her relationships with her friends, and her place within her friend group. She has mixed feelings about her mother, and her anger and grief over her grandmother's battle with cancer informs most of the story. There's music history, great character development, and a heroine you want to root for here, making this a great graphic novel to give to tweens and early teens, who will relate to the frustrating, sometimes frightening, changes that come with the territory. 


Visit Sean Chiki and Kiara Brinkman's website to learn more about Lucy in the Sky. Display with Nidhi Chanani's Jukebox and Meg Cabot's Black Canary adventure, Ignite, for a fun music-focused selection.

Realistic friend and family drama. Lucy is working through it and figuring out who she is through music--mostly The Beatles. Sometimes when I read graphic novels, I can’t get into the narrative because I feel like there are chunks of the story missing but that wasn’t true with this one. Love the music history sprinkled throughout and the soundtrack shared in the back.

Lucy lives with her dad while her photographer mother travels the world. Lucy is very close with her mom's mother and has reached that middle-school age where she is trying to find her place in the world. She misses her mother, and is worried about her grandmother who is battling cancer and made the decision to stop chemotherapy treatments. When Lucy found a stack of Beatles records, the music and lyrics spoke to her. She also enjoyed then stories her father told her about himself and her mother in connection with the songs on the album. Lucy decides to start a band, which leads her to a new friend who does not get along with one of her oldest friends.

Good graphic novel in the vein of Raina Telgemeir and Terri Libenson. I loved Lucy and am hoping this will turn out to be a series. It was obvious what Lucy's grandmother's fate would be, but there were so many more elements the could be expanded into future books. Great addition to upper elementary and middle school library collections.

Lucy's mother is a journalist who travels a lot, and her father also spends a lot of time at work, so Lucy depends on her grandmother a lot. Unfortunately, her grandmother has cancer and is becoming increasingly frail. When Lucy discovers her father's Beatles records (and the timeline on this works; the book is set in 2012, when my own daughter was in middle school, and there are a lot of people my age who still were interested in the Beatles), she wants to put together a band, but has some difficulty with her friends wanting to do this. There's a lot going on, but the combination of multiple middle school dramas and The Beatles will make this a steady, if not constant, circulator in my library. Remember, one of the most popular middle school graphic novels ever is Telgemeier's Smile, which is basically about the drama surrounding dental trauma.

The drawing style was okay, but I was disconcerted by the eyes in many of the frames-- blank circles filled with white, which made the characters depicted this way seem like like they were wither Little Orphan Annie or were possessed by demons. Solid black dots I can handle, but I often get stuck on one feature of the drawing style, which is why graphic novels are not my favorite. Tweens will not have this problem.

While the premise of the GN is about Lucy and her new found love of The Beatles, the real themes of the story are about friendship and family. Lucy is in middle grade, trying to figure out who she is and how she fits into the world. The Beatles provide her with a way to feel and guide her with soundtracks for her life. A must read for a Beatle fan of any age!

More of a 3.5 — I really enjoyed this graphic novel! Lucy has so much going on in her life, and I thought that showing her growth as a character via her journey through the Beatles, and that it was a wonderful way to introduce younger readers to this iconic group and their music. While I would have liked to see some better conflict resolution amongst the girls, I think it was still a fairly accurate portrayal of how pre-teens tend to handle differences of opinion.

I was not sure what to make of this book - going back and forth from liking the book, to not liking the book, and back to liking it again.
The book is a coming-of-age story of Lucy, a middle school student. Like middle school students all over the world, she's going through a lot of turmoil. She's just coming to discover the things she likes and the things she's good at. Her friendships are on-again/off-again, with friends sometimes being the cruelest. Her family is splintering, with her grandmother - the steady influence in Lucy's life - showing frightening signs of aging.

Lucy discovers two things that give her something to feel good about. She discovers her love of music and with some friends starts a band. And she discovers her father's old Beatles' records, solidifying her love of music. But what if music is what separates friends? Can music make things right, too?

What grabbed me initially about the book, of course, is the obvious Beatles connection. The title and the cover image homage to Sgt. Pepper are definitely eye-catching to those of us who are Beatles fans. Yet while we're likely to be the ones to pick up this graphic novel, we're also likely to be a bit disappointed because this book is not for us. This is for our children and grandchildren.

And that's why I struggled initially. I wasn't putting it into context as to who the target audience for the book was.

The book feels a little bit over-written. Lucy goes through SO. Much, Drama. with her friends. It's back and forth without resolve. I wanted to give up a few times and I admit to looking ahead to see how many pages were left.

But a middle-school girl? This is every day of middle schooler's life. I think a young reader will immediately catch on to and connect with this. The Beatles part is secondary to a middle-schooler's reading. The Beatles get the attention of the older generation who are perhaps more likely to purchase the book to give to the young reader.

Real or not, I did not need the drama to drag on quite so much. We already have a lot going on - parents, grandparent, friends, music - that pulling it all together a little tighter would have made this a more enjoyable book for this reader.

The art by Sean Chiki, is 'simple,' solid lines with bold colors and not a lot of depth/shading. It works well for this book and complements the story nicely,

Looking for a good book? Beatles fans may get sucked into picking the graphic novel, Lucy in the Sky, but it is the reality of the middle school slice of life that will keep young readers interested.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

I received a digital ARC through NetGalley from First Second. Lucy is 12 and she loves music, her grandma has cancer, and her mom is constantly away on travel. After finding some of old records she starts a love for The Beatles and convinces her friends to start a band. There are a lot of middle school ups and downs in this story: first crushes, jealously over friendships, and family drama that causes strong emotions. Overall, this is a good depiction of middle school life. The art is decent, but the story feels a bit long. I don’t have a strong knowledge of The Beatles, but Lucy’s reliable single dad, her grandma’s chemo treatments, and her friends family challenges were well developed and kept me invested.

A sweet coming of age story wrapped around a love for the music of the Beatles. Lucy, who is in Jr. High is contending with a lot: a grandmother with cancer, a dad who never leaves the house since his divorce, a mom who spends all her time on other continents, and a best friend who has suddenly gone boy-crazy and does nothing but fight with Lucy. The love that Lucy develops for the Beatles, thanks to her dad sharing his old records leads her to form a band, which also leads to making new friends, which also ups the tension with her old ones. Told in vibrant color, the story takes us through Lucy's journey and her struggle to come to terms with the fact that change is a constant fact of life.

As someone who grew up with The Beatles, Steely Dan and many more records playing in the house (all from my parents record collection), it was a lovely story to read.
Things like the Abbey Road album cover and the Sgt Pepper jackets have become so iconic that even today's teenagers are vaguely aware of who The Beatles are and how influential they were at the time (and continue to be).

The name is perfect and had me singing 'Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds' for days.

My only complaint is that I found the story-line a little hard to follow at times as I don't think the 'chapters' or change in scenes were always that clear. I didn't quite understand why the seasons were differentiated as chapters.

As an adult who already knows the history of the Beatles, I enjoyed this story, but I wonder if kids who don't know anything about the band well appreciate this story. I do think that the plot about creating a band who having in-fighting in the friend group is relatable.

This book is practically perfect in every way. I would love to get the creators on my indie comics podcast. The story is smart. The musical references are spot on. What a love letter to The Beatles and to growing up. So, so good.

Things are not looking great for Lucy. Her friends seem to be moving on without her, her father is stuck in a rut, her mother is traveling everywhere in the world except to see Lucy, and her grandmother is going through some very scary chemotherapy.
When Lucy discovers her dad's old Beatles records she makes a connection to their music that lifts her spirits and makes her feel understood in a way she hasn't in a long while. Starting a band seems like the perfect way to express herself and to start mending friendships and making new friends. However, middle school never makes things that easy.

I really enjoyed this graphic novel. the illustrations are engaging and interesting to look through. The story is incredibly reflective of the experiences many teens go through during those middle school years where friendships evolve and change nearly every day. I did feel as though the story drug on in a coupe of places, but overall it was really great!

I want to preface this review with the fact that I am not the biggest fan of Slice of Life comics. I do check out a lot of middle grade and YA comics to see if my students would like them. Lucy in the Sky is a contemporary graphic novel about a girl who finds her dad's Beatles albums. She decides to form a band when everything in her life seems to be falling apart.

The art is simple, but in that really fun way that middle grade graphic novels are simple. You aren't missing anything and the style of art fit perfectly with the story. The pages directly connected to the songs by the Beatles just jumped off the page. Everything was flawless, letters, colors, and art.

The story is one my middle schoolers are going to love. Lucy is struggling things feel like they are going from bad to worse. They have all been there and they will relate. The plot does move a little slow for my personal tastes, but I prefer horror and thriller books. But I can't wait to get this into the hands of my students.

Creative Team:
Written by Kiara Brinkman
Art by Sean Chiki

Charming. Loved this middle school coming of age story centered around a young girl's discovery of the Beatles through her parents' and grandparent's love of the band. There's a lot of growth and change in Lucy's family, friendships are changing at school, love is rearing its head, and she's developing a sense of who she wants to be (and understanding that the world is not always fair). I was a little skeptical at first of a contemporary middle schooler falling in love with the Beatles, but my Boomer parents indoctrinated me into the Beatles cult early and I'm doing the same to my kids now, so it is really not that far fetched. The art was cute and loved the coloring. A very charming, affirming, yet realistic look at growing up and the power of music to give meaning to life.