Graphic Novel Review - 'Gumshoe' by Brenna Thummler

In 'Gumshoe', by Brenna Thummler, postwomen and postal girls are also pink-and-blue cowgirls.

It is an Arizonian, letter-writing, letter-looting, stamp-collecting, cat-loving, gum-chewing, gooey s'mores-mouthwatering, campfire-ing, femme-filled retelling of Louis Sachar's 'Holes'. Heck, it starts off with the protagonist, eleven-year-old Willa Rivera, stamping and delivering a letter to a Louis Sachar - the graphic novel is a literal love letter to another author and his work!

Willa is a shy, quiet girl with social anxiety, who dreams of becoming a postwoman. Through a misunderstanding with her town's mysterious postman, whom she aspires to be like, she becomes a runaway and an outlaw, and subsequently a cowgirl-postgirl in the Gumshoe Gang, who are runaway girls like herself.

There is a legend of Two Gum Tilly, a notorious bandit who chews disgusting gum and steals other people's letters from their letterboxes, and throughout the generations she has never been caught. She plays a huge part in the story of these girls.

I found I could relate to Willa, in her quietness and trouble making friends, and in her love of letters, and delivering them to different people (though that fancy of mine largely stems from my obsession with admiration of 'Kiki's Delivery Service', but still). Her three new runaway outlaw friends of the Gumshoe Gang, called Pepsy, Beanie and Whip, are very interesting, well-rounded and well-developed characters in their own right.

The artwork is colourful, expressive, endearing, shady and atmospheric, and the characters are so distinct, fully realised and alive it is almost scary. I loved imagining the Southwestern US accents of certain female characters. At 320 pages 'Gumshoe' manages to pack in carts and wagons' worth of interesting things. Female friendship is one of its major themes.

And did I mention it loves cats? And gum? Lots and lots of chewing gum?

'Gumshoe' - yes, the identity of the current Two Gum Tilly is almost insultingly obvious, and the ending is rather rushed and a little disappointing, after all that buildup and development (not to mention it's heteronormative, with Beanie's never-seen dads being the only exception), but it is such a funny and cute, yet mature and heartwarming middle grade graphic novel! It is certainly unique, and hardly like any children's graphic novel I've read before.

And it has Dogie, Willa's postman's cat, in it, who is drawn to gum like catnip, and is highly intelligent. There is a literal singing cat show! For a famous cat called Cat B'lou! She's "America's feline sweetheart"!

Have I not sold you yet?!

What a town-and-desert rodeo!

Final Score: 3.5/5