Review by Karl Verhoven

Violet’s parents have split up, so she’s moved with her mother to a new town for a fresh start. This includes a new school, but she’s a step ahead of most new kids as her cousin Kris already attends Russell Middle School. Kris is more imaginative than Violet, who finds her strange.

Young adult readers wanting a graphic novel from the viewpoint of the new kid at school are hardly spoilt for choice, which means Emma Mills has to go the extra mile with The Greenies, and at times this leads to a self-conscious striving to be wacky. This is even when accounting for Mills treating serious subjects with humour. Having taken this path, the gears really grind when there’s a switch from staged comedy sequences to Violet missing her father and the friends from her old home. They’re certainly of the out of sight, out of mind variety.

It’s about a fifth of the way through that the title begins to make sense. By then Violet has met a wide range of characters, and has been assigned to detention along with them all. However, instead of wasting their time, the teacher decides they ought to become part of the environmental improvement group led by the ultra-motivated and enthusiastic Isabel. The cast are the painless way of Mills passing out ideas of how young readers can improve their neighbourhoods via rubbish clean-ups, recycling or founding a community garden.

Sarah Nicole Kennedy designs easily distinguished and sympathetic looking characters and plants them in simply drawn, but full backgrounds. These are expressive people, and unlike kids in some other graphic novels they change their clothes. Kennedy is stronger at posing people than she is at moving them, but lays out the art to play to her strengths, providing plenty of cheery illustrations.

There’s a predictability to the general plot in which good intentions combine with group bonding as fiascos occur, while initial jealousies and rivalries are resolved. The Vice Principal may not be seen as often as the seven main characters, but is given some good sardonic dialogue. One wonders whether Mills herself has heard “There were a number of mistakes made here today. A number of different opportunities to make different choices. Safer and wiser choices”.

The final chapters improve on what’s gone before by undermining the foundations perpetuating misunderstandings and doing so very creatively. It raises a good-natured and well-intentioned graphic novel into one with series potential.