Children's book reviews, all age comic books, Kidlit, mglit, movies, entertainment and parenting
Spooky Rivers is based on the TikTok Series. I know I sound like the oldest person in the room, but I never thought a book would come from social media. Is this a case of man biting dog, or am I as old as Methuselah? Regardless, the first thing you’ll notice about Spooky Rivers: 25 Strand and Mysterious Rivers That Snake Across our Planet is its size. It’s one of the three largest illustrated books we’ve received at Daddy Mojo. This is a book that makes a statement and is impossible to ignore.
An attorney friend of mine is visiting as many United States national parks as possible. There are 63 of them, and I think his family has visited about 50 of them. The Nature of our National Parks is a children’s illustrated reference book that inspires the wanderlust in any age. The book isn’t automatically intended for children, it’s just that we group illustrated books with children. In this book’s case that’s not entirely accurate because The Nature of our National Parks also includes a handful of photographs from the places in question. Whichever way you approach the book, you’ll develop a case of the arm-chair traveler. Another effect is that you’ll start scheming a manner in which you can write a book exploring these 63 parks so that you can write them off as a work expense too, which could be what my attorney friend is doing.
Don’t feel guilty for enjoying a graphic novel about a medical condition. Exposures: A Story About Life with OCD and the Power of Facing Your Fears is an unlikely graphic novel about life. Its protagonist is Peyton, who has a sister, Taylor, with the two living with their parents in the mountains. Peyton is growing older and realizes she’s not like other girls. She obsesses over things that keep her from living a more normal life. She has to touch things a certain number of times. She has a constant fear that her sister or family are going to die in the near future. Peyton realistically thinks her food is poisoned, doesn’t like change and has anxiety that is crippling at times. If you’re in high school, the preceding sentences describe you or someone you know. Exposures is a semi-autobiographical graphic novel by Lily Williams.
This is quite the adventure, I thought to myself as I was one chapter into reading Socks & Secret Quests: The Wandering Shop. That further got me thinking of how few books I read that can truly be called “an adventure”. There are a majority of books that are entertaining, and some that are great, but “an adventure”, that all-but reads itself is quite rare. Socks & Secret Quests: The Wandering Shop so perfectly nails the it factor that some books lack.
The Traitors: The Official Search & Find is quite the ironic book. We misplaced it in our office, and couldn’t find it for weeks. I finally dedicated time to locate it and viola, the book decided to make it known. This is important for the context of the review because we stopped watching reality television a while ago, and it’s a testament to the fact that I need to straighten up the office.
The Battle of Attu. As I started The Forgotten War: A World War II Battle on American Soil, it was a battle that sounded familiar, but I could’ve easily been confusing it with something else. Attu does sound very Star Wars. The Forgotten War introduces Attu in the first chapter as American and Japanese troops are engaged in combat in WWII. An omnipresent narrator starts the book with our main character Charlie, in the midst of a battle on the island of Attu. Attu is part of the Aleutian Islands. This chain of islands is the spiraling strand of land that spews off of Alaska. It’s a remote location that teeters into the North Pacific Ocean like a kid scared to jump from the high dive at the swimming pool.
World Without Birds is not what you’re probably thinking it is. Its title, World Without Birds: How to Save Our Planet One Bird at a Time could infer to some people that the book is impossibly pessimistic. The illustration on the cover expands that hypothesis by showing a factory in the bottom sixth that’s belching green pollution. There’s a lonely, white bird flying to the right as if they’re trying to escape the gunk that’s ruining their home, leading to a world without birds. It looks like that. Adults and older readers need to read the introduction first. I know, you never read the introduction, but the one in World Without Birds sets up the book as a series of measured short stories.
Last year I was teaching ELA in high school. One of my writing prompts was to write a short story from the perspective of an inanimate object. I had a photograph of a streetcar, an automobile, advertising sign and more. All of the photos, plus our detailed speech about the essay, had enough details to inspire those high school kids to write something with a modicum of meaning, creativity or heart. Olivetti was an mglit book that we really enjoyed. Author Allie Millington’s book, Trunk No. 3 follows a similar set up. Does it payoff as efficiently as a story from the perspective of a typewriter?
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