Shirley & Jamila Save Their Summer

Shirley & Jamila Save Their Summer is bound to be a popular graphic novel choice with middle schoolers, especially fans of Raina Telgemeier’s Smile. The story opens at a community garage sale with new-to-the-neighbourhood Jamila Waheed being introduced to another 10-year-old named Shirley Bones. Despite their different interests, the two girls hit it off as they commiserate about the mutually boring summers their mothers have scheduled for them. Active Jamila is dreading attending Science Camp while socially awkward Shirley is equally unhappy about the prospect of going to Dance Camp. Taking advantage of their new friendship, the two girls manage to convince their mothers to allow them to hang out together at the nearby basketball court as an alternate summer plan. It’s the perfect solution, providing Jamila with plenty of opportunity to practice her basketball shots while Shirley can happily spend her time reading and working on various personal activities courtside. However, as the days pass by, narrator Jamila becomes intrigued as she sees that Shirley is involved in a lot more than simply reading.

At first, I didn’t pay much attention…but then I started to notice the kids. A lot of kids seemed to be showing up at the court…to meet Shirley. Sometimes they’d bring her things. Sometimes she’d bring things for them. As the days went by I got more and more curious about my new… friend? We weren’t quite friends, but I didn’t know a better word.

After a few weeks of questioning Shirley on their way back and forth to the basketball court, Jamila is still perplexed, and, in true analytical style, she compiles a list of everything she has learned so far about Shirley.

I couldn’t make sense of my new companion. Sometimes she was chatty enough and would tell me all kinds of things. And sometimes it was obvious she didn’t walk [sic] to talk. She seemed to be thinking really hard. Or not at all. But I was there to play ball. So I tried to accept I might never know more about her. Then, this one day things changed…

The plot takes a new turn when little Oliver shows up at the basketball court and frantically begs for Shirley’s help finding his pet gecko which was either stolen or kidnapped while he and his older sister Vee were playing at the nearby outdoor swimming pool. The siblings have had other items go missing from their days at the pool, but the pet’s disappearance adds a more serious nature to the situation. Shirley and Jamila break their promise to their mothers to stay at the basketball court and instead dash over to the pool to investigate the case of the missing gecko.

At this point in the storyline, the realization occurs that this graphic novel is situated squarely in the mystery genre. Shirley explains to Jamila how her sleuthing career began when classmates began to approach her to help them to solve their problems. With Shirley’s keen observational skills and Jamila’s questioning outlook, the girls are now cast in the classic roles of Holmes and Watson. The real fun begins as the reader is also actively involved in this “whodunnit” and can’t help but inspect the panels and text for clues, guess where the gecko might be, and try to identify the culprit along with the junior detectives.

The investigative trail and the evidence uncovered are perfectly relatable for this intended age group. Jamila’s appreciation for Shirley’s abilities and her annoyance when Shirley doesn’t openly communicate her findings also challenge their growing friendship and make for the portrayal of compelling and relatable characters. Of course, true to the elements of most mysteries, there are clues to find, informants to interview, and several red herrings sprinkled amongst the pages designed to build suspense. One example is the early introduction of a potential suspect in Kumi, a fellow pool-goer. However, Shirley’s sleuthing skills soon lead to the real culprit and uncover the surprising reasons for the gecko-napping. Even the book’s setting has to be “solved” through a series of little clues sprinkled throughout the graphic panels – such as a “Save the CBC” lawn sign, a Raptors basketball poster on Jamila’s bedroom wall, and the suggestion of the Toronto skyline on the cover. Given the multi-cultural nature of Toronto, it’s also good to see that Jamila, her family, and other characters in the story reflect this diversity.

The illustrations are delightful, with bold and outlined figures and a predominant use of secondary colours such as oranges and purples throughout. It is interesting to note that the author has chosen to show the main characters always wearing the same clothing despite the passage of time during their summer. For Shirley, that’s a dress and trench coat with Jamila always sporting her basketball jersey and kit. Variety abounds in the panel arrangements, from full-page spreads to the use of overlapped panels and illustrations that bleed off the pages. The backgrounds are usually a simple solid wash of colour with full focus on the characters, although some larger panels are full of details which impart additional story details. The dialogue is realistic and communicated through word bubbles, images and the use of the occasional narration captions to add insight into Jamila’s thoughts, with an example being:

Do I even want to be Shirley’s friend? Is it worth it? What makes us friends? Back in Thorncliffe (our old neighborhood) I played with a lot of kids. But I didn’t really have close friends. But it’s different now with Shirley. We started hanging out because it was convenient. We fixed each other’s problems. But now it was more. I was dying to know what happened with the gecko. And I wanted to know how Shirley would find out…and to help if I could. Shirley was weird, but an interesting weird that made me want to see what she’d do next.

Although the main theme of Shirley & Jamila Save Their Summer is about friendship, this graphic novel also addresses many middle-school issues, such as annoying older brothers, overprotective parents, pop quizzes, bullying, and the dangers of jumping to conclusions, complete with a bit of bathroom humour added for good measure. The satisfying ending includes a gentle message about compassion and the importance of having all the facts and considering different points of views before jumping to conclusions.

Shirley & Jamila Save Their Summer is a debut novel for Canadian graphic designer, illustrator and cartoonist Gillian Goerz’s (pronounced Jillian Gertz). She has contributed illustrations to number of other books and graphic novel anthologies, such as The Secret Loves of Geek Girls (2015), Femme Magnifique: 50 Magnificent Women Who Changed The World (2018), To Be or Not To Be (2013), and Romeo and/or Juliet (2016) – the last two titles both popular “Chooseable-Path Adventures” by author Ryan North. Goerz’s illustrations have also been published in The Canadian Encyclopedia, The Walrus, and The Globe and Mail. Her website features a follow-up activity sheet on creating a detective disguise and four sample comic pages with empty dialogue boxes for those wishing to create their own storylines. Goerz also shares her digital palette, referencing the colours she used for this graphic novel and links to several graphic recordings featuring her work, including an excellent time-lapse video (3:52 minutes) about women change-makers which she illustrated for the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario.

With all the ingredients of a good mystery ticked off, Shirley & Jamila Save Their Summer is well recommended as a popular addition to middle-school library collections or as a welcome gift for any reader aged 8 to 12. And no need to investigate further – a sequel featuring these junior detectives is already available.