Review by Ian Keogh
There’s a lapse at the start of Back to the Drawing Board when Kristen Gudsnuk runs through the cast and their personalities via pictures drawn by Dany, but doesn’t note that Dany has a magical sketchbook that brings what she draws to life. It makes an early scene of her donating a bagful of money puzzling for anyone who’s not read the first Making Friends. The magical locket seen soon afterward clarifies a little, but that’s not given an explanation either. A couple of pages explaining the first volume at the start would have been beneficial.
Otherwise, Gudsnuk did most of the heavy lifting in the first volume, introducing a broad cast surrounding a likeable leading character and an imaginative idea with myriad possibilities. Dany and her friends having flying rings means missing the school bus is no longer a problem, but homework is.
Whereas the first volume straddled the line between all-ages and young adult categories, Back to the Drawing Board offers greater complexity when it comes to personal interactions, pushing the series definitively into the young adult classification. Among the mistakes Dany has made was creating her own friend, and the complications of the school pecking order feed into that, so Dany compounds her error by making a duplicate of herself. The duplicate is created to be more assertive and confident, with the intention this reflect on Dany.
As before, Dany’s a strong lead character, her insecurities understandable, as is her resorting to magical methods to solve them. The strength is how Gudsnuk twists the plot to ensure those easy methods actually supply additional problems. And in a clever twist it turns out Dany’s not the only one using magic to improve their life. That leads to an even bigger mess. Gudsnuk also expands on Dany’s wider family, seen as resolutely unpleasant in the first Making Friends, but for readers who pick up on such things there’s a reason they’re the way they are. It’s not essential to know this for the fun bits to transmit, but Gudsnuk’s adding depth to people’s motivations and personalities here.
The minor lapse at the start notwithstanding, Back to the Drawing Board is another page-turning adventure supplying some lessons in life without ever preaching, and as before, there’s a slam bang finale, this time featuring a menace nearer home and quite the tragedy. Third Time’s a Charm is next.
