Translation: We're doing something important
By: Sara Hansson
Language: Swedish
128 pages, b&w, soft cover
ISBN: 978-91-7037-581-1
Publisher: Galago, 2011
Now here's something new, something different in the Swedish comics culture. A graphic novel about growing up, about being in that intermediate and oh so troublesome age between child and grown up - but without all that tiresome whining that so often permeates this genre and reverts it to a feeling of sulking, revenge-driven angst. Sara Hansson, rather, "tell it like it is", giving us an insight into the mind of the child she was and the world she lived in, with a story that is so endearing and has such a good reading flow that you get all engaged in it and speed through, afterwards regretting your hastiness and going back for another read. Which is just as fulfilling.
The story is easy enough to encapsulate: Sara is an eleven-year old girl without any best friend, and divorced parents, trying to figure out who she is and finding the answer through the brand new band Spice Girls and Rebecka, a one-year older girl in her school who becomes her best friend.
That's the story on the surface. Underneath there's much more going on, as Hansson beautifully captures all the quirks of being the child of divorced parents, of starting to realizing that you can rebel against your parents, but nor really being sure if you want to, and so on. But where this book really excels, is in the description of being best friends. The ending is pure visual magic, as the two girls run around in the rainy dark, shouting "We are the ones who decides!", recreating the feel of the very first Spice Girls video.
Now, I'm far too old to connect to the era of the 90s as a magical place of growing up, or of Spice Girls as being even remotely interesting for that matter, but the genuine feelings that Hansson evokes with her tightly woven story is beyond all that, and very endearing to boot. A really good read, which I recommend heartily!
Hansson has already released a smaller book, in the same vein, Den hemliga kroppen (The secret body), about how her relationship with her own body developed from completely natural as a child into something complicated as the society around her gradually taught her all about how a girl's/woman's body "should" be. This is another interesting, well-told story, and a given read in conjuncture with Vi håller på med en viktig grej.
Finally, since this book focuses a lot on Spice Girls, I just can't help but end with this video, which I found at YouTube and looked at while re-reading the book. Like I stated, I was too old to be interested when this was first released, but I can certainly see how a young girl in the late 1990s would find this mischievous girl-power video irresistible. Go on and watch it, you know you want to.
