Catrina has moved with her family to the foggy, windswept Northern California town of Bahía de la Luna, in hopes that the cool air will help her little sister Maya’s cystic fibrosis.

But the book’s lovely darker palette of blues and grays (the colors are by Braden Lamb) hints at the sadness that inflects this story of childhood illness and dislocation. In her new graphic novel, the fictional story “Ghosts,” Telgemeier’s crisp and expressive characters still look like cartoons. Her second memoir, “Sisters,” was a sharp-edged portrait of sibling rivalry that was also, in a sidelong manner, about the helplessness of watching your parents drift apart. This can make them appear, on first glance, a bit simplistic - cartoonish, in the pejorative sense.īut Telgemeier’s interest in knotty issues of tween and teenage social and family life has been evident since her first comics memoir, “Smile,” which used the story of sixth-grade dental trauma to explore not just a childhood of painful orthodonture but the difficulty of separating yourself from so-called friends who spend most of their time tormenting you. Telgemeier, the popular cartoonist behind best sellers like “Smile,” “Sisters” and “Drama,” grew up a fan of newspaper strips like “Calvin and Hobbes” and “For Better or for Worse,” and her books for young readers utilize a familiar comic-strip visual vocabulary. When they’re angry, steam whistles from their ears when they’re crushing, they expel perfect red hearts from their blushing cheeks. They DASH! across the page, trailing motion lines and little clouds of smoke. Raina Telgemeier’s characters fizz with visual energy. GHOSTS Written and illustrated by Raina Telgemeier 239 pp.

Ghost the book by raina telgemeier