Zita the Spacegirl by Ben Hatke
This is a great graphic novel for elementary readers who will enjoy the action and the science fiction setting. Zita and her friend Joseph see a meteoroid fall to earth. When Zita looks closely, she sees that there is something embedded in the meteoroid. It looks like a red button and despite her friend’s protests, she presses it. Immediately, a rift opens and sucks Joseph through it. After some moments of panic, Zita presses the button again and heads through the rift to rescue her friend. On the other side of the rift, Joseph is being dragged away by a strange multi-armed alien who flies off with him in a space ship. Now Zita is left alone in a strange world filled with amazing creatures. Unfortunately, it’s a world about to be destroyed by a giant asteroid. How is Zita going to be able to save her friend before the planet is demolished?
Hatke is a great storyteller. Zita is a friendly, determined and strong girl character, who remains solidly the heroine of her story. Through his friendly illustrations Hatke has created a world that makes one feel at home despite its strangeness. The adventure here is thrilling, dangerous and great fun. As Zita adventures through the world, readers will enjoy the humor of different characters. Hatke embraces nuanced characters as well, which is a treat in a graphic novel for children.
The illustrations here have an anime appeal to them. Young fans of Pokemon will feel right at home with the variety of creatures that Zita meets.
This is one of those great graphic novels that belongs in every library collection. Sure to check out and be very popular, just face this one out and watch it check out of the library. Appropriate for ages 8-12.
To get a sense of the illustrations, you can view the video below:
Reviewed from copy received from First Second.
Also reviewed by:
Waking Brain Cells 
Isn’t it so great? I devoured in in my hotel room at ALA and then my sister grabbed it and…can’t wait to post a review of it and get it out on the shelves in my library!
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Argh, I’m jealous! I kept meaning to request a review copy but still haven’t gotten around to it. I look forward to reading this one.
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Tasha,
I love these trailers. Two questions:
1) How do you know if there’s a trailer for a book? Do you check YouTube for every book you review?
2) Have you found a way to have these running in your children’s room? I’d love to have a book display with a laptop in the middle running trailers for all of the books on the display. Have you tried anything like that?
Thanks for all of your work for us out here in children’s rooms, and best wishes at your new job!
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Ellen,
In this case, I visited the author’s home page and he had it featured there. I rarely search YouTube for a trailer, rather I find them when searching Google for links to other blog reviews of the same title.
I think that running it in the children’s room is a great idea! I haven’t tried it at all.
Thanks for the good wishes!
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