Archive for Graphic Novels
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Graphic Classics: Louisa May Alcott (Nicola)
Graphic Classics: Louisa May Alcott edited by Tom Pomplun
Graphic Classics, Vol. 18
Pages: 144
Ages: 13+
First Published: Nov. 2009
Rating: 4.5/5
First sentence:
It’s so dreadful to be poor.
Reason for Reading: I love this series and will eventually read them all.
Comments: I’ll start with my immediate response to finishing this volume, “Fantastic!”. This is the second full colour offering in the Graphic Classics series and it is a beautiful book. The artwork is absolutely stunning and each artist has worked in a style and palette perfectly suited for each individual story. Usually, in these collection there will be at least one illustrator’s rendition I’m not too fond of but I loved them all. The book includes 2 poems, an adaptation of the novel Little Women and 5 short stories. It’s been ages since I’ve read Little Women and, of course, this is a quick run through of the story but the essence of the story is there; the individual personalities of the girls shine through and this graphic adaption pays homage to the novel well, especially with the wonderful artwork by Anne Timmons.
The highlight of this volume, though, is the short stories. I have not read any of Louisa May Alcott’s stories before and was wondrously surprised at this ghastly Gothic collection. Four of them are fabulous 19th century sensationalist stories full of corpses, murder and madness while the other is a strange, yet delightful, morality tale for children. My favourite story out of the whole book was the last one, A Whisper in the Dark, which at a full 41 pages is a perfect example of the era’s Gothic story with romance, long dark corridors, strange noises in the night and madness, all wonderfully illustrated by Arnold Arre using a palette mostly of browns, going to greys and black to suit the mood.
Yet another fine volume in the series and a must read for fans of the series or Louisa May Alcott. And further research tells me we don’t have long to wait for Vol. 19 which is shooting for a May release date entitled “Western Classics”. I can hardly wait!
The Color of Earth (Nicola)
The Color of Earth by Kim Dong Hwa, translated by Lauren Na
The Story of Life on the Golden Fields Vol. 1
Pages: 319 pgs.
Ages: 16+
First Published: (Apr. 2009 Eng. trans) (2003 orig. Korean)
Genre: YA, realistic fiction, manga
Rating: 4.5/5
First sentence:
“Golly! Them beetles are matin’.”
Reason for Reading: Cybils nominee.
Summary: This is the story of two women, one a little and the other her young widowed mother. The story focuses on the little girl and her awakening identity as a woman, and also as a side story is her mother who finds love again for the first time since her husband’s death. As the back of my book says “first love and second chances.”
Comments: This first book in a trilogy follows the little girl from the age of about six to fourteen. It takes place in a small Korean village in a time period unknown, with the only clue to placing it somewhere in the 20th century being a steam or coal engine train. Now, I’ll start off by saying this is not the type of book I would normally read *at all*. I am much too conservative to even want to read a book that has the words “s*xual awakening” on the front flap but doing my job as a Cybils panelist I reluctantly set down to give the book a chance.
I can’t quite know how to say just how beautiful a story this was. A little girl’s curiosity about her body, the difference between boys and girls, grown-up things she over hears and how she goes straight to her mother with her questions and confusion is a tender love story in itself. The mother/daughter relationship presented here is truly touching and really the backbone of this volume. For those wanting a plot there really isn’t any. We are touched by the maternal relationship and watch as each of them separately experiences womanhood. The little girl’s experiences of finding our about her body, how it’s different than a boys, her first period and her first crush on a boy, who is studying to be a monk, are all respectfully portrayed. The mother, who is young and beautiful, suddenly finds that love for a man can touch her heart again when she falls in love with a traveling artist who keeps returning to visit her. There are a couple of incidents in the book that I could have done without but for the most part the material is presented in a decent way, making for a truly touching story.
I also really enjoyed the artwork. The is the first time I’ve read Korean manga which is called manhwa. I’m not a huge fan of manga artwork as I hate the horrible fake over expressive faces and how all the men look like girls. But this book was not drawn that way at all, aside from the occasional great big mouth to show extreme emotions all the artwork is very realistic and the detailed background scenery in many frames is lovely. The men aslo look like men. I wonder if this is typical of Korean manhwa or just this particular artist’s style.
I’ve fallen for Ewha, the little girl, and I’ll be reading the next book for sure. Though I won’t commit any further as I’ll have to see if the story remains within my boundaries as she gets older. This book, The Color of Earth, is not going to be for everyone but if the topic interests you and you are comfortable with the subject matter then I hope you find the story as touching as I did. I’ll end with a lovely little quote the girl says to herself near the end of the book:
Because I asked something I shouldn’t have asked. I heard what I shouldn’t have heard. And because I went where I shouldn’t have gone, I saw what I shouldn’t have seen. How will my young heart cope with all that I’ve heard and seen?
Swallow Me Whole (Nicola)
Swallow Me Whole by Nate Powell
Pages: 216 pgs.
Ages: 16+
First Published: Sept. 2008
Rating: 3.5/5
First sentence:
Mom?
Reason for Reading: Cybils nominee.
Received the book through ILL.
Comments: This book is deep and difficult for me to write about as I’m not sure I “got” the whole thing. I’ll make an attempt at my impressions. Two siblings both have psychological problems. The girl, Ruth, is the main character and suffers from delusions, paranoia, schizophrenia and OCD while her brother seems to suffer on a lesser degree from delusions. They also have their grandmother living at home with them as she is dying and also delusional. The book follows the girl’s descent into madness while those around her stand by and do nothing. She recognizes her mind is different and so does her brother, together they can talk to each other about it. We watch as Ruth starts out trying to make her way through each day until in the end her illnesses smother and bury who she once was.
The book is done is black and white, with a lot of the pages having a black background. Many scenes have word bubbles with writing so tiny or scribbled it is unreadable, these are the background voices that Ruth doesn’t hear in her world. The story is intense and yet, there is no real plot. The book tries to capture a feeling in words and pictures. I sort of enjoyed the book. Probably up to the mid-point I was enjoying it but honestly, I didn’t see the point of the story. I have mental health issues myself (some of which were mirrored in the book) and the book seemed to just be saying to me, “Look, this is what it feels like to go crazy”. Perhaps others will get more out of it. I recommend the book for higher aged teens because of the swearing (which includes the f-word) and a small amount of teenage sex.
My First Graphic Novels (Nicola)
Stone Arch Books pride themselves in publishing safe graphic novels for young readers. A parent does not need to worry that an objectionable illustration or theme will pop up in a seemingly innocent looking book.
My FIRST Graphic Novels is a set of beginning books for Grades K-2, published January 2009, each with a different sport’s theme, and the books each feature either a boy or girl as the main character. The first pages show how exactly to read a graphic novel; what order to read the panels and the balloons. These books have a lot of narrative rectangles, a smaller amount of word bubbles and plenty of sound effects. All of the words are written in proper lowercase sentence structure with all-caps reserved for the sound effect words. This is especially appreciated as children often find all-caps more difficult to read and for some reason, comic books and graphic novels are most likely to use an all-cap text throughout.
Each book also ends with an about the author and illustrator section, a short glossary of words presented that the child may not be familiar with, a page of Discussion Questions and one of Writing Prompts and a website where kids can go to find more info on the subject at hand. All of the above make these books also very useful in a homeschool or classroom setting.
Goalkeeper Goof by Cari Meister. Illustrated by Cori Doerrfeld. RL: 1.4. This book was especially appealing to my soccer playing son. David is great at kicking, dribbling and running but when his turn comes up as goalie he always misses the ball causing the other kids on the team to nickname him “Goalkeeper Goof”. The coach gives David some good advice and he finds that he can save the ball when he tries. The book introduces the topics of name-calling, turning the other cheek, and paying attention to the task at hand. The 8yo (a struggling reader) read this book wonderfully with hardly any problem with words. He also enjoyed the story very much being a soccer player himself. As a parent, I found the graphic presentation of the book very accessible to a young reader. The illustrations are also very well done, bright and bold, and the characters are shown as belonging to a variety of ethnic groups. 5/5
The End Zone by Lori Mortensen. Illustrated by Mary Sullivan. (RL: 2.0) With just a slightly higher reading level than the previous book read in this series, this one was a bit harder for the 8yo to read. But the story was so interesting that it kept his interest and enthusiasm. The boys don’t let Olivia play flag football with them but one day one of the boys is sick and calls her to take his place. This is her big chance! She takes her place on the team, has a great time and the boys appreciate her as a good player. Neither my son nor I had ever heard of flag football, so we had to wait until Dad came home to ask him and then ds got all the answers he was looking for! The theme that girls can do the same as boys is obvious but it wasn’t “in your face” and handled very well. Boys and girls will enjoy this one. My son thoroughly read this with pleasure, and as a struggling reader there is nothing more I can ask for than books at his reading level that hold his almost 9yo interests. 5/5
The complete line of My FIRST Graphic Novel series, newly published in early 2009 are:
The Goalkeeper Goof
Rah-Rah Ruby
The End Zone
T-Ball Trouble
Lily’s Lucky Leotard
The Kickball Kids
and six more are coming out in August and each will have a vehicle theme from trains to scooters!
Highly recommended!
Toon Books (Nicola)
Last year we had the privilege of receiving three Toon Books for my 8yo and I to review. These are Graphic Novels for emergent readers.
Available April 15, 2009 two more books in the series will hit the shelves.
Rating: 5/5
Benny and Penny in The Big No-No! by Geoffrey Hayes is a fun story of a brother and sister mouse who wonder about their new neighbour and then think he/she may have stolen Benny’s pail. So they go into the neighbours yard and create a sequence of un-neighbourly events.
The illustrations are wonderful, which is always half the point of a graphic novel. The story is cute and very funny! The 8yo had a lot of real giggles over the events and I thought the story was very age appropriate. My struggling reader had no problems reading this book. The compelling story line kept him focused on figuring out the harder words and I am very pleased with this installment in the Toon Books series.
Luke on the Loose by Harry Bliss is a very funny story of a little boy who runs after pigeons in the park, in the street, over a bridge, through a restaurant, etc. all the while the police are looking for him and he is on the news. The 8yo really enjoyed this one and read it in two sittings.
All the Toon Books are wonderfully illustrated but I must say this one I am particularly partial to the drawings as there are always multiple events happening in the background that make you linger in each frame. This book was an easier read than Benny and Penny in The Big No-No! with lots of repititious words and appropriate word usage for this level.
I would say that both these books fall into the middle age range of the recommended ages for this series which is Reading Levels K-3.
Toon Books (Nicola)
Toon Books are a new set of graphic novels aimed at the emerging reader. They are written and illustrated by professional artists/authors and are wildly intriguing for the young reader. My son who is reading at a Gr. 2 level enjoyed these immensely. The three I am reviewing are the second and latest set (Aug. 2008) to be released.
Jack and the Box by Art Spiegelman is printed in the traditional horizontal format of a picture book and is the easiest to read of these three. Large print and easy (K-1) vocabulary along with a funny story about a gift jack-in-the-box with a sense of humour; along with the wonderful illustrations make this an addictive read for children. If your child can read the title, they will be able to read the book. Lots of fun!
Stinky by Eleanor Davis is for a little more experienced reader (Gr. 1 -2). My son read this very well and he is one who struggles with reading. But the wonderful story of a Stinky swamp creature who hates clean little kids but meets a friend in a boy who seems to like the exact same mucky, gross things he does is an appealing story for boys. One that will keep kids reading just for the fun of it. Divided into chapters this book gives a good sense of accomplishment when finished by the emergent reader.
Mo and Jo: Fighting Together Forever by Dean Haspiel & Jay Lynch is again for the more experienced reader, divided into chapters and is the highest reading level of the lot, approx Gr.2-3. My struggling reader had some difficulties with the vocabulary but with a little help from Mum and Dad he was eager to read the super hero story. With both a girl and boy character this should appeal to both, though I think boys are going to love this one for sure. Every boy’s dream of becoming a superhero comes true when Mo and Jo’s mailman comes to their house and admits that he is the Mighty Mojo but he is retiring and would like to give them his costume which contains his powers.
As a parent I was thrilled with these enticing books that held my reluctant reader’s interest and kept him reading page after page without any pressure from mum or dad to just try and read one more page. In fact we all liked them so much I’ve ordered the first three for Christmas presents this year and look forward to the next books that will published next year. These ‘early readers’ are a fabulous use of the graphic novel format.
Rating: 5/5
