Brave by Svetlana Chmakova

What character(s) in this book would you most and least like to be friends with, and why?

The author of Brave, Svetlana Chmakova, wrote Awkward, one of my favorite graphic novels that I highly recommend. If you haven't read it, you totally should.

Brave is focused on the friend of the main character from Awkward (Penelope). Jensen is a daydreamer who hopes to help save the world someday. He thinks of each day at middle school like a video game, him trying to survive the day, avoiding game bosses and other challenges. Friends are a struggle for Jensen, even finding a partner in class. Hoping to be accepted, he does jobs for the school newspaper's dynamic duo, Jenny and Akilah. Jensen becomes sucked into one of their social-experiment projects. Because though he doesn't quite realize it, Jensen is being bullied.

A character in Brave that I would NOT want to be friends with is Jensen's friend Tessa. Tessa is mean in a teasing way, making "jokes" at other people's expenses. And it makes Jensen uncomfortable. One example of this is on page 132, when they're discussing costumes. And Tessa says, of Jensen "'He's gonna go as a sunspot, duh, dresses in, like, a garbage bag.'" Everyone laughs, and then someone probably Tessa says "'He's totally big enough to block out the sun.'" That is incredibly mean. Why would you say that to your friend?
- Anaiya, 6th grade, CSUS