By Faith Erin Hicks
Twin sisters spend a summer at animation camp and find out that loving to draw and being good at it aren't the same thing.
Sloane and Ash are twin sisters who do everything together, and more than anything, they draw. When they finally get into the summer animation camp they've dreamed about, Ash is thrilled, and Sloane is startled to realize she isn't, even though art is her whole life. Ash throws herself in and runs straight into a hard truth: loving something doesn't mean it comes easily, and the weight of her own hopes, plus her teacher's, starts to crush her. Set in 1999, back when Disney ruled animation, it's a summer of learning who you are when the thing you always shared stops fitting you both the same way.
If you've got a child who fills every margin with drawings, this is their book. It takes making art seriously, both the joy of it and the sting when your hand can't yet do what your eye sees, and it never turns preachy about either. The twin bond gives it a warm center, and because it's a full-color graphic novel it moves fast enough that a reluctant reader will finish it and a bookworm will read it twice. The 1999 setting is a quiet gift for you, too. You'll recognize the fashion.