Graphic Novels

Doodlebug

| Tasha

Doodlebug by Karen Romano Young

Dodo has been expelled from her last school because she tried to sell her Ritalin to other students in her class.  Now her family is moving from LA to San Francisco.  Her parents are hoping for a fresh start for their careers and for Dodo.  Her younger sister Momo is angry about the move, and Dodo is unsure that it will make any difference at all.  On the trip, Dodo discovers that she loves to draw, that doodling makes her calmer and better able to deal with the drive and the move.  Dodo starts a new school, changing her nickname to Doodlebug.  Her doodling is accepted in some classes and forbidden in others.  Momo is desperate to join the school’s choir, so she tries several stunts, like singing into the PA system of the school.  Both girls may have pushed it a bit too far in their new school.  Will Dodo be expelled again?

A fabulous combination of journal, graphic novel and story, this book allows readers to really understand what it is to be a visual learner and to have ADD.  Dodo is a great character, fully developed and complex.  Just as wonderfully drawn are her family members, even the new cat, Sven.  They are all complicated and interesting, portraying a real, multicultural family dealing with change and opportunity. 

Young’s creativity is fully on display here with pages filled with a variety of lettering, lots of drawings and plenty of forward momentum.  Several touches will resonate with young artists who will find the names of the pens used to make the black and white illustrations.  They will get plenty of inspiration to create their own journals, capture their own lives and adventures. 

Highly recommended, this book will be enjoyed by readers who enjoyed the Joey Pigza series, Amelia’s Notebook, and Diary of a Wimpy Kid.  Appropriate for ages 9-13.

Reviewed from copy received from Feiwel and Friends.

Also reviewed by:

Check out Karen Romano Young’s website.

Trickster

| Tasha

Trickster: Native American Tales, a Graphic Collection edited by Matt Dembicki

21 trickster tales are given the graphic treatment in this spectacular graphic novel.  With great attention to authenticity, Dembicki paired Native American storytellers with graphic artists to create this collection.  Readers will enjoy the diverse types of art within the book, moving from more painterly to cartoony and everything in between.  The text of each story is also quite individual, reflecting that storyteller’s cadence and style.  The collection as a whole is a celebration of Native American culture but also of tricksters and the great stories that revolve around them. 

Turning pages in this book is rather like an exploration.  One never knows what is behind the next page.  Dembicki has created a book that works as a collection but also allows each story to stand on its own with its own distinct feel.  There is an art at work in the selection, placement and creation of the book itself and of each and every story.  I love the sense one gets of an entire community of people creating this book, this celebration of story.

Use this to introduce children to Native American stories or to the idea of the trickster in folklore.  It is a powerful example of modern media meeting timeless tales that will resonate with children and adults alike.

Highly recommended, this graphic novel should find a place in most public libraries.  I would hesitate to catalog it as folktale, and allow the graphic novel reader to realize the depth of what a graphic novel can truly be.  Appropriate for ages 7-12.

Reviewed from library copy.

Mercury

| Tasha

Mercury by Hope Larson

A fascinating combination of history and fantasy, this graphic novel tells two parallel stories, both set in Nova Scotia.  Different generations of the same family, one modern and one from 1859, are played against one another.  Tara is the modern girl who is dealing with her family home burning to the ground.  Her mother has had to leave and find work elsewhere while Tara stays with a friend.  Tara has been homeschooled the last two years, and is returning to the school district that she used to attend.  She soon finds romance and magic.  Josey’s story takes place 150 years earlier.  Josey is the sheltered daughter of a farmer who is besotted when she finds herself the focus of a stranger’s attention.  The man has found gold on her father’s farm and soon the two of them enter into business together mining the gold.  Tara finds her own modern world connected to that of Josey in unexpected ways.

Larson has created an intriguing and winning book.  While the two stories are vaguely parallel in romance, they diverge quickly into very different stories.  The book is beautifully designed.  Readers will immediately understand that the historical story is bordered in black while the modern is bordered in white.  Larson’s art is welcoming and great fun to read.  She has created a story with the best of graphic novels, romance and fantasy woven seamlessly together.  The two heroines are very different people, but both romantics and both tied together in intriguing ways.  There were some characters that I wish had been more fully developed such as Tara’s mother and the family she is living with.  I think it would have made it easier to enter her world.

Highly recommended, this graphic novel is one that will easily cross borders between teens who enjoy graphic novels and those who read romance or historical fiction.  This is a great entry book into the world of graphic novels for new readers.  Appropriate for ages 13-15.

Reviewed from copy received from Atheneum.

Also reviewed by:

Meanwhile

| Tasha

Meanwhile by Jason Shiga

Combine a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure book with a graphic novel and you have this book.  Open the book and you are immediately stopped and the format is explained.  Follow the tubes, they move in all directions, and you get the chance to make all sorts of choices.  The first choice you have is ice cream: chocolate or vanilla.  That small decision sets you off on an adventure that could involve a time machine, entropy or even immortality.  The choice is yours.  Chocolate or vanilla?

Shiga has taken the best of both formats and combined them into a stellar book.  Readers get to make decisions that have direct impact on the storyline, they get to try to figure out codes to reach new areas, and there is the joy of a book with thousands of potential stories inside it.  At the same time, it also has the appeal of a comic book.  It’s filled with humor as well as drama.  One never knows where the next turn in the tube or story will take you, making it virtually impossible to put down until you have tried story after story after story.

Highly recommended for all library graphic novel collections, this book will be adored be reluctant readers, embraced by comic lovers, and simply enjoyed by most.  Appropriate for ages 8-12.

Reviewed from library copy.

Also reviewed by 100 Scope Notes, Books4YourKids, and Comic Book Resources.

2009 Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalists

| Tasha

The finalists for the 2009 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes have been announced.  They have finalists in a variety of categories.  Here are the ones for Young Adult and Graphic Novel.

Young Adult Literature Finalists

The Rise and Fall of Senator Joe McCarthy by James Cross Giblin

The Lost Conspiracy by Frances Hardinge

Charles and Emma: The Darwin’s Leap of Faith by Deborah Heiligman

Marching for Freedom: Walk Together Children and Don’t You Grow Weary by Elizabeth Partridge

Tales from Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan

 

Graphic Novel Finalists

Luba (A Love and Rockets Book) by Gilbert Hernandez

GoGo Monster by Taiyo Matsumoto

Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli

Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 5: Scott Pilgrim vs. the Universe by Bryan Lee O’Malley

Footnotes in Gaza by Joe Sacco

Smile

| Tasha

Smile by Raina Telgemeier

Based on personal experiences, this graphic novel will speak to those of us who are teenagers and those who have survived that age.  Raina just wants to be a normal kid.  But one evening, she falls when running, tripping and damaging her front teeth.  This sets her on a journey of braces, dental surgery, and headgear.  On top of her dental issues, Raina also deals with the normal teen issues of friends, bullies, and crushes on boys.  Readers get to watch Raina grow up from a sixth grader to a high school student as she learns about acceptance, self-esteem, and the importance of good dentists.

Written with lots of humor, this book has a feel for what makes being a teenager both funny and painful.  Telgemeier’s writing is refreshing and fast paced.  Her art is friendly and silly.  With her art and writing combined, she has created a book with a fresh feel that has universal appeal.  While speaking of her own issues with teeth, she speaks to all of our strange teen situations and what each of us dealt with or is dealing with. 

A fresh, funny look at being a teen, this book will easily find a readership and be eagerly passed from person to person.  Appropriate for ages 11-14.

Reviewed from Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) where most of the illustrations were not yet in color.

2010 Great Graphic Novels for Teens

| Tasha

YALSA has announced their picks for the top graphic novels of the year for 12-18 year olds.  There are 73 titles on the list and the committee selected a Top Ten:

   

The Helm by Jim Hardison and Bart Sears

Children of the Sea, Vol. 1 by Daisuke Igarashi

 

Pinocchio: Vampire Slayer by Van Jenson and Dusty Higgins

I Kill Giants by Joe Kelly and J.M. Ken Nimura

 

Omega the Unknown by Jonathan Lethem and Farel Dalrymple

Bayou by Jeremy Love

A.D.: New Orleans after the Deluge by Josh Neufeld

Gunnerkrigg Court, Vol. 1: Orientation by Tom Siddell

Pluto by Naoki Urasawa and Takashi Nagasaki

Ooku: The Inner Chambers, Vol. 1 by Fumi Yoshinaga

Twilight the Graphic Novel

| Tasha

Welcome to the next dimension of the Twilight juggernaut.  Graphic novels.

Entertainment Weekly has an exclusive (including an inside spread so you can see Edward himself) of the new offering by Yen Press.  The graphic novel will be released on March 16th with a large first printing of 350,000 copies. 

Libraries need to stock up.  The merger of the manga craze and the Twilight craze – this could be huge!

Red Ted and the Lost Things

| Tasha

Red Ted and the Lost Things by Michael Rosen, illustrated by Joel Stewart

This is a picture book graphic novel.  It is best described as sweet and quiet, two words that are rarely associated with graphic novels!  Red Ted has been lost on the train by Stevie who loves him as much as she loves cheese.  He is put on the lost and found shelf next to a green crocodile who has been there so long he can’t remember who lost him.  Red Ted doesn’t want that to happen to him, so he decides to escape.  The crocodile goes with him, jumping off the shelf and following the signs out of the station.  Once outside, they meet a cat who smells the cheese on Red Ted and then helps him find his way to Stevie by following the smell of cheese. 

The adventures they have on the way are not frightening, focusing on things like rain and dogs.  This book has a quiet story that combines an old-fashioned feel with a modern format.  It is a very good first graphic novel for young children who will enjoy the speech bubbles and the frames that they see in older siblings’ books.  Rosen tells a complete and charming story in just a few words and snatches of conversation.  Stewart’s art works really well here with the bright and bold colors of the main characters contrasting with the gray tones of the backgrounds. 

A graphic novel for the preschool set, this book has a charm about it that will find it happy owners.  Appropriate for ages 4-6.

Reviewed from library copy.

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