French Milk

September 22, 2008
For her 22nd birthday—and her mother's 50th—Lucy Knisley and her mother went to Paris. For more than a month, they toured the City of Lights from their fifth arrondissement flat, exploring museums and cafes, taking photographs, eating pastries and drinking French milk, which Knisley says is sweeter than its American counterpart; she compares it with the “influence we take in from our mothers.” Knisley's first book is unquestionably a travel journal first and foremost: Lucy-the-writer is so close to Lucy-the-subject that at times the story lacks background and emotional complexity. But as a travel journal French Milk
shines. Knisley's photographs from the trip punctuate sketches of her daily adventures and musings about graduating from art school, first love and having an adult relationship with her mother. Best of all are Knisley's portraits of home at the beginning and end of the book, which capture her childhood home and college life lovingly but with clear eyes. Knisley's cartoony drawings are pleasingly clean in one panel and tellingly detailed in the next. A word-of-mouth hit when it first came out in a self-published limited edition, French Milk
will remind readers of their own early trips to Europe and of traveling in their 20s.

October 1, 2008
In the month before her last undergraduate semester as an art student, Knisely traveled with her mother to Paris, where they spent their days sightseeing at museums, markets, and heritage sites, and eating delectable local foods at a range of brasseries, caf's, and restaurants. At 22, Knisely was also occupied during this vacation with anxieties about growing up, making that leap from child to independent adult. This personal and sensorially rich journal unfolds in a balanced combination of cartoons, narrative prose, and photographs. Kniselywhose pencil work is clean and simpleis economical with both line and phrase, but not so laconic as to leave the reader outside the story. Her ability to pull the reader quickly and completely into her travel diary is reminiscent of Aimee Major Steinbergs in Japan Ai (2008), but the psychological and interpersonal dynamics here are very different, making this a quieter, more thoughtful book.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)