In recognition of the 10-year anniversary of Meg Medina's Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass, Mel Valentine Vargas has adapted the Pura Belpré Award-winner into an inventive, compelling graphic novel. Vargas creates a new lens through which to view Piedad "Piddy" Sanchez's story by using sparse dialogue and highly emotive, limited-palette illustrations.
Vargas brings Piddy's emotional state immediately into focus by the choice to illustrate in grayscale and blue. The loneliness and sense of isolation are unmistakable as the young teen tries to navigate her new school and the befuddling animosity from a student she doesn't even know. ("Yaqui Delgado hates you.... she wants to know who the hell you think you are.") Vargas frequently makes use of close-ups on the eyes to communicate Piddy's inner conflict--her fear, confusion, embarrassment, desperation, rage. The artist elegantly employs a dichotomy, conveying the complexity of the young protagonist's experiences and emotions through spare text and minimalist drawings--with little to no background and extensive use of white space, the reader's eye is drawn to the strong emotion on the characters' faces.
Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass is a stirring account of school bullying that remains pertinent a decade after Medina's original release. By offering the story in the graphic novel format, Vargas makes Piddy a superhero as well as a protagonist who can teach bully victims that they can be the superheroes of their own stories. --Jen Forbus, freelancer