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Reading Reflection Three: “Smile”

Lauren Dellojoio

Dr. Tovey

ECE 3330

October 17th, 2021

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Reading Reflection Three: “Smile”

The graphic novel “Smile” by Raina Telgemier depicts an eleven- to sixteen-year-old

protagonist by the same name. Telgemier’s story is an autobiographical account of her

adolescent experience, making it easy for other women to feel some type of personal connection

to the plot. For me, I used my reading process of questioning and pausing to make connections in

order to collect these personal connections with Raina. I connect with Raina, from her anxieties

relating to her mean friends, and the even tougher decision to leave them behind. To

experiencing an awful accident and allowing for positive perspective to be made by a real

tragedy around you. Even something as silly as investigating the authenticity of the Tooth Fairy,

Raina and I have many personal connections that we share.

The first event of the story and the biggest plot point is when Raina trips outside of her

house and knocks her two front teeth out on page eight. This is a major event that effects the rest

of the story. Despite how horrific it is to knock your teeth out; I have two different people in my

life who knocked out their front teeth. I, luckily, am not one of those two people, but the two

people who did had similar experiences to Raina afterwards. My older sister knocked out her

front teeth when she was around eight after tripping and falling face-first into a coffee table. It

was awful and she would spend years trying to fix the damage, just like Raina. Raina’s doctor

worked hard to prevent her from “wearing dentures at eleven years old” (Telgemier, pg. 25).

This line was kind of funny to me as my sister had fake teeth for several years as she waited for

her other baby teeth to follow out. Although, her fake teeth were more like the retainer Raina

received on page 105, than a set of dentures. Despite Raina’s accident being an awful experience,

it is not uncommon enough for me to not have a personal connection to it.

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The next event I felt personally connected with is when Raina experiences an earthquake

that causes chaos are San Francisco from pages 66 to 77. As a person born during this century, I

have experienced many historical and upsetting events, so I understand where her feelings of fear

and uneasiness came from. It is scary and unnerving to be a child and experience a disaster that

has the potential to hurt people you love. It is a weird part of being a child and having to realize

that there are things that can ruin your whole world that you have no control over. This event is

concluded with Raina expressing that “I survived a major earthquake. I guess in the grand

scheme of things losing a couple of teeth isn’t the end of the world!” (Telgemier, pg. 80). I think

this is such a realistic realization and I really relate to it. I remember being around the same age

and having a rough day, and just being in the worst mood. That evening, the news was talking

about the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, and I remember how it dawned on me that

things could always be worse. Like Raina, I needed to hear of or experience something awful in

order to create a sense of gratefulness for my life that all children around this age tend to lack.

Moving forward, I have a somewhat funny personal connection to one part of Raina’s

story. When Raina is put under anesthesia while getting her teeth removed, she has a vivid

flashback to when she lost her tooth as a child. She ends up losing in a bouncy-house and is

panicked at the idea that the Tooth Fairy will not come without her tooth being placed under her

pillow. In the end, her parents help her make a tooth out of paper and they place that under her

pillow instead. Raina wakes up with a dollar bill and card under her pillow, but after reading the

card asks, “how come her handwriting looks just like Dad’s?” (Telgemier, pg. 101). Raina is too

smart for her own good and she realizes the Tooth Fairy is just her parents. I have a similar

experience to this from when I was around nine. My parents enjoyed keeping my childhood full

of creative and magical events and things. They never told me something wasn’t real, they
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always let me come to my own conclusion and make my own big discoveries about the world.

This meant they kept up the façade of Santa, the Easter Bunny, and, of course, the Tooth Fairy

for as long as possible. Since they would never tell me something wasn’t real, I decided to do an

experiment. I lost one of my last baby teeth at school but purposely didn’t let my mom know

about it. Instead, I just put it under my pillow. N I was testing my hypothesis that without my

mom knowing I had lost a tooth, there would be no money from the Tooth Fairy. I let it go on a

few days with there being no money under my pillow. I then went into the second part of my

hypothesis which was that if I told her, suddenly money would appear the next morning. That is

exactly what I did, and the outcome was exactly what I had expected. Subsequently, like Raina, I

had found out the Tooth Fairy was not real due my parents slipping up on the act, and my

childhood self being too smart for my own good. I feel that both Raina and I’s parents had their

heart in the right place by keeping up the façade, but thought we were dull enough to not notice

all the obvious signs that it was them.

The fourth personal connection I made to Raina’s story was her struggle with toxic

friendships. Raina’s friend group was awful to her on several occasions. From the beginning of

the book, they relentlessly teased her about things she was obviously insecure about. The first

example of her friends being bullies to her was on page 29, when Emily tells Raina her pigtails

make her look like a baby. On the following page, Raina asks herself “but do I really care what

anyone else thinks? Yes.” (Telgemier, pg. 31). This sets up how Raina feels about herself when

around her friends and her need for acceptance. As someone who was once a young girl like

Raina, I understand this need for acceptance of my friends, even if I felt continuously

disrespected by them like Raina did. Raina’s friends constantly would use Raina as the butt of

the joke, even after Raina expressed how much she disliked this. For example, when Raina
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confronts them about calling her a nerd on page 128, she is met with further relentless teasing. I

understand this feeling of being teased by people you considered your friends, but in reality, they

used you as a personal punching bag. I relate to Raina’s frustration and eventual anger towards

her friends as she realizes how insignificant and trapped, she feels when with them. When Raina

begins high school on page 190, she is excited for a new beginning, but is quickly disappointed

by seeing her friends waving her over from their table. I also understand this and feel personally

connected to it as I also had friends like this in high school, that by the new school year I was

desperate to be away from. As Raina explains on page 193 after leaving her friend group, she

didn’t care about being lonely as it was better than being treated badly. This is something I

deeply relate to as I prefer to have good, trustworthy friends than friends who I feel

uncomfortable being myself around. Overall, Raina’s experience with awful friendships

connected to me deeply as I have had many friendships that I felt uncomfortable and demeaned

in.

Branching off the topic of Raina’s toxic friends, I also feel personally connected to the

anxiety and self-consciousness that these friendships caused in Raina. As stated in the former

paragraph, Raina began to show signs that her friends’ bullying was making herself conscious

from as early on as page 31. From there, Raina has a slow climb of anxiety that affects her

relationships with others beyond her friendships. When Sammy, a boy she likes from band, asks

her to meet him at the dance so he can give her a Valentine’s Day present, she ends up standing

him up. On page 119, she feels like she is about to vomit and leaves. When she does, she goes

home and plays video games, now stating that “suddenly, I feel a little bit better” (Telgemier, pg.

121). I feel personally connected with these feelings of anxiety when entering a situation that is

unfamiliar. As a young person like Raina, I remember being extremely anxious when entering
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these types of situations. On top of that, both Raina and I were not being accepted by our own

friends, furthering these feelings of anxiety as if your own friend dislike you, who will? On that

note, this anxiety translated into Raina’s self-worth. Like most girls, including me, at this age,

Raina felt sub-par to her peers and not good enough. Even when given the chance to have her

first kiss, Raina does not want to as she wants every part of the moment to be perfect, especially

herself. When reflecting on herself in that moment she believes that “I don’t think that’s going to

happen anytime soon” (Telgemeier, pg. 162). She believes that she is inadequate compared to

who she wants to be. This person that she wants to be is created by the lack of support from her

friends on her looks and emotions. Raina is constantly made into a joke by her friends, so she is

unable to feel good about herself.

The final aspect of Raina’s story that I relate to was when she finally left her mean

friends behind. After being humiliated by them in front of the whole school, she blew up at them

and expressed all of the emotions that she had been bottling up. She is further angered by them

expecting her to simply laugh it off and accept their bullying, but she finally stands up for herself

on page 191. From there, she is free to find new friends who accept her for her and support her.

When she gets her braces taken off, she is scared to show her new friends her teeth as she does

not believe they are perfect. Raina is shocked that they don’t point out how bad they look or

mention anything negative at all about her teeth. Despite being shocked, Raina is happy, and the

book ends with Raina walking away with her new, positive friends. I remember when I walked

away from my mean friends in high school and how scary it was to be on my own. Regardless,

like Raina, I would find new friends who I had more in common with. These friends made me

feel happy and comfortable, and I didn’t have the same anxious feelings around them that I had
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around my old friends. Raina and I both know the positives of walking away from bad things in

order to have a new beginning with better friends.

The reading comprehension process I went through as I read “Smile” was pretty simple

for me. As an adult reader reading a children’s book, my reading comprehension process was

automatic. When I reflected on what processes I use when I read, I realized I ask myself tons of

questions. Whenever I read anything narrative, I tend to ask myself questions that set the stage

for me like “what year is it?”, and “where does this take place?”. I was able to identify the place

when the Bay Bridge was mentioned on page 70, which is obviously in San Francisco. I was then

able to figure out this story takes place in the late 1980s to 1990s when the Little Mermaid being

a new movie is mentioned on page 88. I did this type of questioning steadily as a read, mostly

subconsciously. The other reading comprehension process I used was making personal

connections to the plot. This not one of the types of processes I usually use while reading, but as

this assignment asks me to make several personal connections to the plot, I did so. I would pause

when something interesting happened in the book and made me think of something in my own

life. I would then flag the page with a book flag and continue reading. As I collected

connections, I began to write a list of the connections I made with page numbers so that I can

easily reference back to them. For me, asking questions and making connections as I read helped

me comprehend the material better as I was able to create a deeper understanding of it.

In summary, I made several personal connections to the plot by asking myself questions

and pausing to the note these connections in the form of a list. These connections ranged from

the feelings of having and eventually leave a toxic friend group; as well as, how awful it is to

damage your front teeth, but how real tragedies can allow you to put this into perspective and see
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the silver lining. Overall, I felt personally connected to “Smile” and Raina’s story in many

different ways.
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References

McLaughlin, M. (2012). Reading comprehension: What every teacher needs to know. The

Reading Teacher, 65(7), 432–440. https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.01064

Telgemeier, R. (2010). Smile. Provincial Resource Centre for the Visually Impaired.