A review by letsgolesbians
Squirrel Meets World by Shannon Hale, Dean Hale

4.0

I love the Squirrel Girl comics, and Hale did a fantastic job keeping the same tone in this book. It was fun and light-hearted, just like the comics, complete with footnotes from Doreen. Hale also made sure to use "white" as a descriptor instead of making white the default, and called out ableist language (the word ableist was actually used!!!). Doreen's new best friend in this series is named Ana Sofia, and she's a deaf Latina. I can't comment on that rep, but Hale thanked people in the acknowledgements, so I think there were sensitivity readers to make sure Ana Sofia was as accurate as possible. Sometimes things in this read kind of young; obviously it's a middle-grade book and is going to read a little young, but the interactions with some of the Avengers felt more unrealistic than they do in the SG comics. Like, Black Widow probably wouldn't answer texts from strangers.

The book is broken into chapters that follow Doreen, Ana Sofia, and Tippy Toe. The Tippy Toe chapters were fun, but the squirrels talked in a mix of what I think was supposed to be Mafia talk and AAVE, which I didn't really like. But overall, this was a fun read, and I'm already reading the second one.