43 pages • 1 hour read
Kayla MillerClick
Fiction | Graphic Novel/Book | Middle Grade | Published in 2019A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Genre Context: Middle Grade Graphic Novels
Click is a middle-grade graphic novel that follows in the footsteps of beloved classics such as Roller Girl and the widely read works of Raina Telgemeier. Using accessible art and vibrant color, Click captures a grounded, realistic story about a fifth-grade girl who must navigate the school’s changing social dynamics and figure out her own identity.
Graphic novels have become increasingly popular among young readers, providing a more dynamic presentation that competes with the effects of social media more readily than static text. As the School Library Journal reports, graphic novel sales nearly doubled between 2019 and 2021. Yet despite student enthusiasm for the genre, some librarians and teachers have resisted promoting graphic novels, opining that they are not “real” books. However, other librarians and teachers deliberately incorporate graphic novels into the curriculum, valuing them as a useful way to get students excited about reading (Cockcroft, Marlaina. “Graphic Novels, Manga Explode in Popularity Among Students.” School Library Journal, 3 Oct. 2003).
Click uses eye-catching pastel colors to differentiate panels that fill the page while using traditional comic structures to tell the story through panels, scenes, and dialogue bubbles. The word count is fairly low compared to other middle-grade novels, and Kayla Miller advances the story through detailed visuals that often contain no text or dialogue. It is also important to note that compared to an all-text novel, time passes differently in a graphic novel. Conversations play out over entire pages, and the visuals use body language, vivid expressions, and detailed settings to provide more insight into the psychological and emotional nuances of a single moment. As a result, graphic novels like Click dive more deeply into emotional stories that cover less time than a traditional novel usually would.
Series Context: The Click Series
Click is the first graphic novel in an ongoing middle-grade series that follows Olive’s experiences with navigating her changing friendships in a realistic environment. The first novel introduces Olive through a short yet detailed story with relatively small emotional stakes; however, despite the plot’s simplicity, the author’s treatment of the protagonist’s development imbues the narrative with deeper emotional resonance. To this end, Miller introduces a large ensemble cast as Olive interacts with her many friends without exclusively claiming membership to one particular group. Because the story focuses on a short time frame as Olive and her classmates prepare for the variety show, Miller creates many opportunities to explore Olive’s growth on a similar scale in future books. By emphasizing the small social challenges that Olive faces at school, Miller creates realistic stories that reflect the ordinary yet powerful coming-of-age moments that many middle-school students experience.
Rather than stretching each novel to cover a broad span time, Miller illustrates the small, quiet moments that demonstrate Olive’s challenges, interests, and emotions. Because each installment in the series has such a narrow focus, Miller’s series features a wide range of in-depth explorations of middle-school life, and each story offers readers new experiences that Olive has throughout the fifth and sixth grades. For example, subsequent installments explore Olive’s adventures at summer camp, her role in the school elections, her attempts to befriend new students, and her methods for choosing new extracurricular activities and dealing with familial issues. The second book in the series became a New York Times bestseller, and the series as a whole is widely beloved by young readers and adults alike. Based on the success of the series, Miller went on to co-write Besties, a spin-off series with Jeffrey Canino and illustrated by Kristina Luu. Besties follows two of Olive’s friends from the Click series, Chandra and Beth, as they channel their interest in clothing design into building a fashion empire.
