Children's book reviews, all age comic books, Kidlit, mglit, movies, entertainment and parenting
Category: Books
These are books that kids will want to read-or should read, but will enjoy doing so. Board book, picture books, kid lit, elementary school books, middle school books, high school books, all age comic books and more will be talked about here.
When is an illustrated book not an illustrated book? When it turns into a store, the old adage from bubble gum wrappers would tell us. Except, in this case, a book can’t walk and The Ramones, The Unauthorized Biography by Soledad Romero Marino with illustrations by Joe Padilla is an all-age look at a rock band that defined a generation. I know that calling them ‘rock’ and not ‘punk’ will raise the ire of some purists. Chill out my punk rock friends. This is a book that will satisfy longtime fans of The Ramones, kidlit lovers, mglit people who want to discover something new, and those parents who want to introduce their early readers to the group.
Our youngest son can melt like butter on a hot day. It’s that zone where a child can become overwhelmed by the situation around them and any parent to a kid under 10 has seen it. They’ll hold their breath, lie on the floor, scream, become unresponsive, scratch themselves, or worse. There’s a really sweet video that’s making the viral rounds now showing an older brother demonstrating to his younger sibling how simply breathing deeply can calm you down. Breathe Deep, Little Sheep, A Calm-Down Book for Kids by Jessica Lee with illustrations by Lucia Wilkinson accomplishes the same thing for kids through second grade.
Claymation scared the bejesus out of me when I was a kid. That and puppets. It’s ironic that as an adult I really enjoy both stop-motion/claymation, as well as, puppets. It’s the love and time that go into each that makes me enjoy it. To an extent, my thought process is that if they loved it this much to spend this much time creating it, then it must be great. I completely credit The Nightmare Before Christmas with part of this thinking. Wolfboy is another great example, but in this case, it’s somewhat of a combination of my old foibles.
I’m in a third-grade class right now. A mere ten minutes ago I was teaching the kids writing while some of the brighter kids started talking about the books they’re reading. Rick Riordan was the main author that those kids were talking about. Some of these nine-year-old students aren’t as advanced when it comes to reading. I heard some of the kids call their books ‘baby books’, so I had to jump in and clear things up.
This is not a ‘baby book’, nor is it actually the book that those kids were reading. It also may not be the first time that readers in your house have seen a Super Turbo book.
What we have here is Super Turbo Saves the Day!, an all-age graphic novel from Little Simon. This is truly for all ages. Those kids who are only five years old can pick up Super Turbo and make some sight words or at least really enjoy the pictures. Getting your pre-k or kindergarten-aged student to eagerly look forward to carrying around a book, even if they can’t read all of the words yet is half of the battle.
Educational and entertaining illustrated books have a sweet spot in our hearts. Elementary school children want to be entertained, and they don’t mind learning. While parents or educators would prefer that the verbs in that previous sentence were flipped and that learning came first in the equation, it’s not. Busy Spring, Nature Wakes Up by Sean Taylor, Alex Morss with illustrations by Cinyee Chiu is an illustrated book that softly tells a story about a dad and his two daughters on an early spring day.
Saying that board books are for babies is like saying pizza is mostly circular. While that is true, you could also talk about the myriad number of ingredients, the thickness of crust, and so on. Sandra Boynton is the queen of board books. However, her style of board books is just like that classic pepperoni pizza, it’s one style. My Mighty Marvel First Book is a series of board books from Abrams Appleseed. This series absolutely nails to the floor the aspects, appearance, enjoyment, and characteristics that make up a great board book for crawlers and up.
Let’s take a look at The Incredible Hulk and Black Panther. “Those pictures look old”, our 11-year-old said while looking over the book. Obviously, these board books are meant for crawlers through early elementary school. However, I knew what he was talking about with his ‘old’ adjective. Black Panther is illustrated by John Buscema and The Incredible Hulk is done by Sal Buscema. John and his younger brother are legends in the Marvel Comic world. Their representation of every superhero at Marvel Comics came to define the appearance and personality of their superheroes for a generation. Sal had a 10-year run illustrating The Incredible Hulk, whereas John did at least one issue of every Marvel Comic book and then some. Suffice it to say, any parent that picks up either of these My Mighty Marvel First Books will have some sort of memory when they look at the art.
Slamdown Town: Ragtag Team is the second book in the series by Maxwell Nicoll and Matthew Smith. The first book, Slamdown Town was a slice of Tom Hank’s Big, The Main Event on Netflix, as well as a fantasy that most kids have. What if something you did magically gave you powers? In the case of Ollie, a young teenage boy, it’s a piece of gum that transforms him into a massive, hulk of a man who can wrestle like Kurt Angle. Whenever he chews it he’s Big Chew, an adult who throws elbows in the ring and when he doesn’t he’s just Hollis’ little brother, in addition to being a best friend to Tamiko.
We haven’t read a children’s illustrated book like The King’s Golden Beard in a long time. It’s a timeless illustrated book that feels as old as the hills, yet as current as whatever is trending on social media now. It’s a book that’s short on words, but long on story, instead of letting the illustrations and the white spaces within the pages fill in the blanks for young audiences. The King’s Golden Beard is also very smart and treats those young readers, or anyone else who jumps into the book, like the intelligent readers they are, even if they suspect they know where the story is going.
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