Some Spoilers below:
I was not sure what I expected with My Own World, but this is an odd book. I am not sure if author Mike Holmes is basing it off of their own experiences, or if it is a universal story about the misfit and how he tries to overcome things.
If you are a 10-to-14-year-old, you might take it at face value: a boy finds/creates a magic world to hide in. It is a world where he is in charge (unlike his real world life) and does what he wants, when he wants, and how he wants. It is safe from the bullies, broken promises, teasing siblings, secrets, his parents, and having no friends. If you are an adult you might see it for the symbolic value: A boy is hiding from the real outside world inside his imagination. Here he can pretend nothing is wrong with his family, his brother, or even himself. It is a symbol of how one young child deals with the sickness of a family member (his beloved older brother), then the years when the family moves to help that person, and five years later when they return home. A home the youngest child (there are four siblings in total, two girls and two boys) doesn’t remember (as she was a baby/toddler, when they left), where the oldest sister doesn’t come back to it as she’s now off in school, and the boy of the beginning is now a teenager and about the age of his older brother when he took ill and now the spitting image of.
The artwork is simple, detailing what is needed and when it is needed. This simplistic nature is not negative, allowing you to focus on the story, but also see how the surrounding things are important. Practically the entire time the brother is in the hospital with his unnamed (but assumed cancer) illness is wordless and little clues are important. There are pages with little to nothing on it, but our main character or one small object. Colors are important as the “rose/berry/red colored world” is to show you imagination vs reality. The color blue is also important, as is the lack of color or lack of anything but a black, blank page. The text is minimal, mostly there to move something along that images can’t. Sometimes there is a word or two or phrase on a page and nothing else.
It is artistic and not for everyone, but an interesting read. I felt it almost meant more for adults than for the middle to younger high school aged reader.