Chapter Two Hundred Three: Jane, the Fox, and Me

So I noticed this large-format middle-grade graphic novel when someone else requested it at the library, and I was so attracted to the something about its illustrations that I decided to request it for myself.  I don't read graphic novels very often, though I tend to enjoy them when I do read them, and that's certainly the case here.  Jane, the Fox, and Me by Fanny Britt and Isabelle Arsenault comes to us out of Montreal (translated from the French by Christelle Morelli and Susan Ouriou) and tells the story of Hélène, a preteen girl whose schoolmates have turned on her for reasons not mentioned in the story (and possibly unclear to Hélène herself). Alternately taunted and ignored by her classmates, Hélène finds comfort in books--Jane Eyre, in particular--but there's no escaping the torment of a two-week long class trip to a nature camp. Eventually, Hélène finds a friend in a girl who no longer wishes to put up with the antics of the mean girls and also realizes that the weight problems her classmates tease her for are non-existent.  While that particular point of plot resolution felt a bit too easy to me, and while the overall story arc is not terribly original--ostracized girl finds a friend--I found the illustrations to be so evocative of Hélène's suffering while tormented at school and joy while escaping inside Jane Eyre that they made the whole book a worthwhile read for me.