Good As Lily

Good As Lily
By: Derek Kirk Kim and Jesse Hamm
Graphic Novel- Modern Fantasy

In this book Grace Kwon, a normal Korean 18 year old girl, is visited by three different aged versions of herself (6 years old, 29 years old and 70 years old). She is faced with the challenge of solving the problems that each version of herself has, while they help her solve her own problems in the meantime. When she finds herself faced with the three versions of herself on the night of her birthday, Grace realizes her life is going to be different. Grace is an intelligent high school girl with a lot going for her, but she is blind to some of the things going on around her, especially the obvious crush her friend Jeremy has on her. She can't see this crush mostly because she is so in love with her drama teacher. Each version of Grace helps to make the life of all the other Grace's better. While the 6 year old who gets fussed at for not being good like her 8 year old sister Lily, the 29 year old worries about being single forever and the 70 year old who drinks and smokes because she feels she has nothing else in life to look forward to. Somehow she manages to keep the versions of herself from her parents by hiding them in her room each night and tells everyone at school that they are her cousin, aunt and grandmother. Everyone is disappointed to find out there is not enough money to put on the school play that Grace and Jeremy are both starring in. When Grace finally talks to her parents about her sister death, the next day her 6 year old version is gone. At the school dances she is angry to find her 29 year old version in a room with Mr. Levon, but she finds out he is still in love with his ex. This event shows her not to be afraid of turning 30 and she is better of without him and that she will find someone better. The next day the only one left is the 70 year old. She disappears after paying $30,000 to have the school play. Since Jeremy is injured she decides not to take the lead role in the play and instead stays backstage with Jeremy. She finally realizes how she feels about him.

I feel like this was an interesting graphic novel, but I'm not sure I would encourage my students to read it until middle school because there were a few cuss words and inappropriate things in the book. With this book I would have my students try to work in groups to determine the moral of this book and to decipher what it means for Grace. Of course they would have to read the book as homework for several nights to finish it. After each group determines what the moral is, you could discuss as a class questions about the book such as; why each character disappeared at a certain point in the story or what effect each character had on Grace's life and how they feel this changed her future.