The teachers, while only having small roles, are also shown to have considerable influences and while characters may resent school, there are moments of clarity when they appreciate the teachers who do have a positive influence and care about the success of their students. Searle juggles the cast quite effectively and this feels like a living, breathing high school society. It allows the story to have a very textured and realistic look at high school experiences instead of isolating the primary characters, which also shows how any sense of control over oneself and friends are constantly bombarded with outside influences of opinion, misunderstandings, and more. One aspect of this book I greatly appreciated is that the scope of interactions is not confined to just the friends group, with the characters existing in multiple friend circles and other outside interactions. These characters feel very authentic as we experience them in a variety of moods, see their flaws, and find ourselves rooting for them even when we are frustrated with their actions (or inactions). The Greatest Thing follows Winifred and her new best friends, April and Oscar as they stumble through their sophomore year. Raw and realistic, this is a character driven story that is so delightfully nuanced as it addresses a wide variety of social, emotional and psychological struggles, taking aim to successfully capture the reader’s heart. Winifred’s best friends have moved to a private school and she is starting the year alone but making new friends who come together and start a zine while bumbling through teenage life together. The Greatest Thing from author and illustrator Sarah Winifred Searle is a gorgeous graphic novel where art is central to the growing process for the characters while the book itself is also a wonderful expression on the complexity of teenage life. I think it might be the closest thing to magic we have in the world, the ways it can channel emotions, help us communicate complex feelings, and most importantly, the way it can help and heal. I often wonder how I would have survived without art in my life.
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