One Year at Ellsmere

Written and illustrated by Faith Erin Hicks

First Second

978-1-250-21910-7

176 pp.

Ages 10-14

July 2020
Reviewed from advance reader's edition

Thirteen-year-old Juniper is pleased for the opportunity to attend private school Ellsmere Academy for Girls, though being identified as its first scholarship student does pose some problems. Despite the fact that she tells her roommate Cassie that she's there to learn and not make friends, it soon becomes clear that the two will need to become allies to survive the year at Ellsmere.

It's like Downton Abbey meets Lord of the Flies, in plaid skirts and navy sweaters. (pg. 79)

From One Year at Ellsmere by Faith Erin Hicks

From their first assembly, it's evident that Cassie wants to make friends, even with the arrogant and privileged Emily, who loves to call others hurtful names. But when Juniper stands up to Emily, asking her what made her so broken that she feels compelled to pick on others, she makes an enemy of a girl who can and does make life very difficult for the new Ellsmere student.

From One Year at Ellsmere by Faith Erin Hicks

As Juniper works hard, determined to do well so that she can fulfill her dream of becoming a doctor, Cassie completes her schoolwork with little enthusiasm. That is, until Juniper encourages Cassie to write a personal story for a competition and she wins. Emily is not pleased with anything that disrupts her status at the top and finds ways to bully the girls to re-establish her dominance.  When she threatens to destroy the only memento Juniper has of her late father, Juniper punches her in the nose and is put on probation. Worse yet, Emily plays herself as benevolent, asking that Juniper not be expelled, all with the intent to assert herself and crush Juniper further.

From One Year at Ellsmere by Faith Erin Hicks

But after Cassie discovers Emily's plot to get Juniper expelled, a showdown in the forest between the three girls reveals a fantastic forest element that turns things around for Juniper and Cassie and puts Emily firmly where she belongs.

Though Faith Erin Hicks has been honoured with a White Pine nomination for her YA novel Comics Will Break Your Heart, it's her graphic novels for which she is best known. From Bigfoot Boy to Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Nameless City, Faith Erin Hicks tells stories of fantastic worlds of ancient civilizations, superheroes and fierce characters. Though One Year at Ellsmere may appear as realistic fiction based in a boarding school, rife with bullying, schoolwork and fitting in, Faith Erin Hicks slips in a little bit of the supernatural to keep things interesting and let us know that there's always something more than meets the eye.  

I'm so glad that Faith Erin Hicks has reimagined her earlier The War at Ellsmere (SLG Publishing, 2008) into One Year at Ellsmere, especially as all her characters seem more familiar now, like kids and adults you'd see in a school. There are the mean girls and the strict administrators, the friendly and the aloof, those who struggle and those who are high achievers. There are even hard-working parents supportive of their kids and those who overvalue their children. Faith Erin Hicks's illustrations embed readers in a boarding school atmosphere of austere dorm rooms, uniforms and conventional studies while showing them a world that is both familiar and foreign, where a mythical creature can come to the defense of a girl and where the bully doesn't win.