Review by Booklist Review
The popularity of Barry's comic strip "Ernie Pook's Comeek," an alternative newspaper mainstay, continues unabated after 15 years, but earlier collections of it are out of print. Sasquatch Books began rectifying that situation with The Freddie Stories (1999) and continues in this generous collection focused on preteen Marlys without neglecting her teenaged sister, Maybonne, their freaky little brother, Freddie, and assorted cousins and neighbors. Marlys and her siblings have it tough. Their father is absent, their mother detached, and their existence hardscrabble. They find comfort in childhood joys that most will recognize, from baton lessons and toys from Sears to first love and the last day of school. The fortification they derive from those simple pleasures helps them survive the callous teachers, ruthless classmates, and vicious dogs that afflict them at every turn. The most popular member of "Ernie Pook's" cast, Marlys is endearingly gawky. That description also fits Barry's seemingly crude but deceptively expressive drawings, which perfectly capture the messiness and excitement of adolescence. --Gordon Flagg
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Barry is one of American literature's great chroniclers of childhood. Her comic strips, drawn in disarmingly and deceptively childlike lines, distill the essence of fried bologna sandwiches and stray dogs, mysterious teenage bedrooms, and kickball at dusk. This luminous hardcover collection centers on Barry's magnum opus, Marlys, a bright, bossy, awkward grade-schooler cloaked in freckles and bravado. Marlys, her sensitive little brother, Freddy, and their cousins Arna and Arnold navigate a world of angry mothers, absent fathers, schoolyard politics, and trailer park drama, ping-ponging between comedy and tragedy. Some strips are heartbreakingly beautiful, others simply heartbreaking. But most are funny, as the kids present on diverse topics as "How to Groove on Life," "Fumes of Regret," and "Don't Freak It's Only Nature" ("If you don't like extra pink dangles of flesh, don't go staring at the star-nosed mole"). This book will bring groovy love into your life. Pinky swear. (Aug.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Barry's latest offers readers more stories of beloved eight-year-old Marlys, first introduced in the mid-1980s in the syndicated comic strip Ernie Pook's Comeek. The volume opens with Barry briefly discussing her artistic process, then moves on to featured strips that tell of a working-class family in which Marlys and her siblings, including teenage sister Maybonne and younger brother Freddie, endure a challenging life of limited resources, absent parents, and unengaging classrooms. However, along with cousins and neighbors, they use their imaginations to make it all a lot more enjoyable. Thematically and artistically similar to the author's "autobifictionography," One! Hundred! Demons!, this work successfully brings together plenty of Marlys adventures sure to please her many fans. Marlys is bizarre but lovable, and Barry does an excellent job of entertaining readers with her exploits through captivating dialog, varying points of view, and drawings that depict a child's world. Verdict Barry's passion for her character is evident, and while this Greatest! of! is bound to engage a wide general audience, YA readers in particular will be delighted.-Margaret A. Robbins, Univ. of Georgia, Athens © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Barrys recent novel (Cruddy, p. 1999) proved what her comics admirers already knew: shes a splendid writer with a phenomenal ear for everyday speech. And her comics work, syndicated in dozens of newspapers, has grown with her. After collecting stories featuring her character Freddie (The Freddie Stories), Barry celebrates another of her wonderful creations, Freddies sister Marlys. There are over two hundred Marlys-centered pieces here, some dating back to 1986, making it possible to chart Barrys growth as writer and artist. Though she still relies on a scratchy, wobbly messiness to echo her subject, Barrys lines calmed down a bit, and her frames became less busy. Barry likes to play with the borders to her mostly one-page stories, and she eventually broke out of her strict four-frame format. A number of the earlier pieces are told by Marlys cousin Maybonne, who hates her guts, partly because Marlys doesnt hesitate to remind everyone that shes a gifted child. But their childhood together is recalled with bittersweetness: their marginal social status, the absence of fathers, their tough-talking matriarchs. As the girls remember it, though, its mostly about gross food, nasty neighborhood dogs, plastic toys, and goofy haircuts. Beneath the joyful flotsam of their youth, Barry peeks in on their desperation. She also knows the junk well: the bikes, the batons, the turtles, the caps, the candy cigarettesshes a visual archaeologist of American childhood. The best stories are in Marlys own voice: her riff on the word groovy; her little lessons addressed to readers on drawing, school reports, and local news; and her hilarious guides to mud, Band-Aids, bugs, and poodle poetry. Barry has a genius for remembering the odd things kids and grownups do, especially during those times that linger between meanness and joyful innocence. Beyond nostalgia, her deceptively simple art, in all its spareness, breaks your heart and makes you laugh, often at the same time.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
