The kind of gal who would never give a boy like Milo the time of day. There’s this weird girl at school that keeps bugging him, and then there’s gorgeous Summer Goodman. Milo has found that his dad just sleepwalks through his days, and our hero’s not doing so hot himself. Everything from the “Apartment of Endless Stairs” to the appropriately dubbed “Stink Hole (The mystery smell was never found!)”. Ever since his mom died his dad has been moving both him and his older sister into different homes. Once again, Milo has become the new kid at school. A dead mom book that kids will really gravitate towards.

This is a book that isn’t afraid to get a little sad and serious once in a while. Humor fans will like it, but so too will those kids who need a little extra meat in their fiction. Milo: Sticky Notes and Brain Freeze combines interstitial comics with a fun text and a gripping story to come up with a book that manages to be all things for all readers.

He’s penned a funny novel that deals with the very real issue of how a family copes when one of its family members passes on and he’s done it with a combo of art and prose. Alan Silberberg has managed something that I would have deemed near impossible. It’s not how I’d sell it to an actual kid, though. “It’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid if the mom died.” BAM! Now that’s grabby, ain’t it? If I were a Hollywood executive I suppose that might be how I’d sell Alan Silberberg’s newest novel about a boy and his issues.

Simple sticky notes review