The Tyrell Show: Season Two

Volume XXIX / Issue 29 - March 31 / 2023
Cover of The Tyrell Show: Season Two

The Tyrell Show: Season Two

Author: 
Miles Grose
Illustrated by: 
Shaz Lym and the Dizzy Devils with Artful Doodlers
New York, NY: Scholastic, (Distributed in Canada by Scholastic Canada), 2023
160 pp., trade pbk., $9.99
ISBN: 
9781338767230
Grades: 
Grades 5-7
Ages: 
Ages 10-12
Review by: 
Sheryl Lee
3
Excerpt: 

Episode 7: Flying Solo While Feeling So Low

Welcome back! Okay, a lot has happened since the last episode. If you remember, Boogie was acting really weird when I called him. At first, I was like, that’s just Boogie being Boogie, but then I was like, Boogie’s weirdness is usually funny but that weirdness was just…well, weird. So I decided to talk to my parents about it. In case you don’t know, my parents and I are really close and I always feel like I can talk to them about anything. I mean, they’ve known me since I was a baby, so I would say they know me pretty well!

Anyway, I went looking for them and I saw my mom – actually she saw me! She has this mom power where she always kind of knows when I need her even sometimes before I do, which is pretty great and scary all at once. Oh, and she also knows when I’m lying, and there have even been times when she has stopped me right before I lied… now that’s just plain scary!

So my mom came up to me and was like, “What’s wrong, baby? And yes, she calls me “baby,” and, yes, I allow it, and, yes, when I’m feeling down, I actually like it. That being said, if you write into the show, do NOT call me “baby”! trust me, I will not respond. Okay, back to my story.

Miles Grose’s The Tyrell Show: Season Two continues as a diary fiction in the form of an internal podcast by middle school aged student Tyrell Edwards. Tyrell is a pre-teen encountering the social and emotional challenges of a young adolescent. As the audience, we are listening to everything Tyrell chooses to share with us, including the moments he is sorting out his feelings and issues in his relationships. In this second installment of Tyrell’s brain cast, Tyrell encounters more serious social issues such as bullying and learning how to be a good friend. We follow Tyrell through his experience of how to help a friend who has become withdrawn, and Tyrell doesn’t know that he needs help in figuring out how to support the friend. The tone in The Tyrell Show: Season Two is much more serious and matter-of-fact compared to the first book, The Tyrell Show: Season One.

Throughout the story, there are graphic panels with speech and thought bubbles. The dialogue in the bubbles has more text than the first book. Shaz Lym’s illustrations in The Tyrell Show: Second Season are black and white. The characters are depicted as cartoon-like humans. Most of the characters in this book are of black descent, and they are not stereotypically drawn to be alike. The graphics in the novel adds a visual element to aid in the storytelling of the text. There is a good mix of graphics and text that would make this text appealing to reluctant readers.

Overall, The Tyrell Show: Season Two is a more serious sequel for this BIPOC diary fiction of a middle schooler.

The Tyrell Show: Season Two is recommended for any middle schooler interested in reading about true friendship and how to overcome bullying.

Recommended
Reviewer: 

Sheryl Lee is a teacher-librarian in the New Westminster School District and is a mother of two elementary aged children.