Addie joins her father on a six-week business trip to Spring Haven University where he's involved with a virtual reality lab. Addie has been struggling with her mother's absence (revealed late in the book that she is in prison for counterfeiting prescriptions and selling drugs) and isn't really interested in socializing with other kids her age, including Mateo, their neighbor down the hall. After experiencing the virtual reality projects her father's students are working on, Addie can't contain her wonder and awe and escapes into various virtual worlds whenever she can. Eventually she and Mateo team up to create a VR project to help distract kids during their cancer treatments, and Addie learns it's not so painful to connect with others. Readers will be intrigued to explore more about VR and will empathize with Addie's evolution from withdrawn to embracing. ( )

Summary
This Graphic Novel by Wendy Mass is about a young girl, Addie, whose life was turned upside down. After moving with her dad across the country, she meets Mateo. She and Mateo become friends and work together on a fun new project with virtual reality. Through a virtual reality headset they are able to see the world in a whole new way!

Review
After reading the Lost Library by Wendy Mass and Rebecca Stead, I really wanted to explore some of their other works. This book was truly a heartwarming graphic novel and is perfect for middle grade readers. It discusses many challenging topics from drug abuse, and cancer to single parent households. The integration of modern technology and Virtual Reality as a tool to escape from the challenges of reality was brilliant.

This book would do well with a sister text and research on virtual reality. A book such as, Virtual Reality by Jack Challoner or Virtual Reality Gaming by Betsy Rathburn would provide more background knowledge to the reader about the technology behind virtual reality tools. Through the graphics you could see in Lo and Behold how much it takes to design, more science knowledge would be beneficial to the reader for context. ( )

I ended up liking this more than I thought. It’s covert edutainment a la PBS Kids that shows how VR/ Virtual Reality Augmentation can have its benefits.

In the background, Addie’s withdrawn and subdued after her family fractures. Making a friend and trying out the VR gear changes her perspective.

3.5 ( )

"He can make me go with him, but he can't make me interested." Addie packs up and spends a summer on a college campus where her futurist father is leading a team of students developing virtual and augmented reality projects. Despite Addie's initial reluctance, she becomes interested in VR as a way to escape and explore, and she even makes a friend in real life, Mateo. They share interests—geocaching, moon trees—before they finally share more personal stories, like what happened to Mateo's brother and Addie's mom. Ultimately, with the help of some students, Doug, Lily, and Surekha, they work together to develop VR experiences for people in the hospital where Mateo volunteers. At its heart, this is a story about empathy, whether it's a stranger with chemo or your own parent. Addie reflects, "I think it's harder to have empathy for the people we love the most. When they do something wrong it feels so personal." The layout is creative and dynamic, and the illustrations are full of relevant details. Mendez and Tse do excellent work with shadow and light, and the faint shimmer of VR. Panels set in the past have a gray outline with rounded corners, while VR panels have a half-round cutout along the middle of the bottom. Addie and her family present as white; there is diversity among the secondary characters. ( )

(Full disclosure: I received a free e-ARC for review through Netgalley.)

Addie's dad is a futurist; her mom gave tours at the zoo. They met in front of a giant tortoise enclosure, so it was only natural that she be named after one: Adwaitya, the longest-lived tortoise at 250 years old. Her home was filled with magic (read: science) and curiosity and brimming with possibilities. That is, until her mom broke her leg in a bike accident and subsequently became addicted to painkillers.

With her mom out of the picture, Addie's dad drags her thousands of miles away from home for his summer job: mentoring a group of graduate students whose projects focus on his area of expertise, augmented reality. Sure, Springhaven University might look like a boring old college campus, but strap on a VR headset and it's a colorful dreamland of wizardry and wonder, with VR geocaching games, art installations, workout programs disguised as ghostbusting challenges, even a project meant to foster empathy.

Try as she might to disengage from the world, Addie is drawn into her father's work - with a little nudge from Mateo, a neighbor boy and fellow geek who also happens to be a habitual do-gooder. Together, they merge his volunteerism at the local hospital with "The Gang's" technology to help kids (and adults) who are struggling like they are.

LO & BEHOLD is such a sweet, wholesome, life-affirming story - sorely needed after the last few years. The Breckers are such a delightfully nerdy family, with their affinity for space exploration, nonhuman animals (I love that, in an attempt to cheer her up, Addie's dad takes her to see the pups at an animal shelter and NOT a pet store), and technology (particularly the ways it can be used for good). Dad is a sweetheart, and Mass and Mendez handle mom's addiction with sensitivity and compassion (even if the ending is maybe unrealistically happy). The Gang is likewise an entertaining bunch, and I love Surekha's empathy project - which, like the moon seeds, is rooted in reality.

Even though LO & BEHOLD is a middle grade graphic novel, I'd recommend it to teens and adults who need something soft and cozy to soothe the soul. ( )