The hilarious, heartbreaking, andpainfully true life of agirl growing up in Paris, from the acclaimed comic book artist and author of The Arab of the FutureEvery week, the comic book artist Riad Sattouf has a chat with his friends 10-year old daughter, Esther. She tells him about her life, her family, her school, her friends, her hopes, her dreams and her fears. And then he creates a one-page comic strip based on what she says.This book is a collection of 156 of those strips, comprising the first three volumes as they appeared in Europe, spanning Esthers life from age 10 to 12.As The Guardian noted:Each page of Esthers Notebooks is self-containedtheres usually a neat punchlinebut read them all, and you come to see that Sattouf has drawn a portrait of a generation: their hopes, dreams and cultural references; the way that their personalities, backgroundsmany of the children portrayed have parents who are immigrantsand preconceived ideas about sexuality begin to play out even before theyve begun secondary school. The result is a bit like a cartoon version of Michael Apteds landmark TV series, Up. These funny, well-observed comics are fantastically daring.