Children's book reviews, all age comic books, Kidlit, mglit, movies, entertainment and parenting
Middle school has the potential to suck. Countless variables determine if you find your people early or meander through three years of school and life. By eighth grade you’re certainly ready for high school, but is it because you hit the wall or you’re ready a bigger, more appropriate challenge? There is a lot of that in Weirdo. I also feel a lot of ‘reviewer’s remorse’ now because Weirdo has been silently judging me from my book queue for a while.
The Five Wolves by Peter McCarty is unlike any book we’ve seen before. It’s a wordless book, but presented at a very high level and is 285 pages long, so it’s not for the very young. The narrative is grand and has more in common with Beowulf or The Odyssey, than a graphic novel. However, one could categorize The Five Wolves as a graphic novel, albeit one that’s unlike anything they’ve ever seen. It’s also not entirely a wordless book. There are pages with words on them, but they’re pages with only words, hundreds of words, symbols or numbers with the phrases that are relevant to the story that are bolded. I tried to read The Five Wolves one time and got too frustrated with it. And while that’s not a good first impression for a book, I rebounded, took my time with The Five Wolves, looked over all of it and have a better impression.
It’s great to see things mature and evolve as new books come out in a series. Investigators is not that book series. Instead, Investigators came into the all-age graphic novel space as a plucky, genuinely very funny elementary school book that older readers will also want to jump into. When the first Investigators graphic novel came out we said something along the lines that it was the next must-read book series for elementary school readers and that there was a new captain (underpants) in town. Now, five books after their debut, Investigators: Heist and Seek is still providing dependable, smart laughs, all the while making young readers enjoy something that they need to do.
This is not a pejorative to other graphic novels, but Nico Bravo and the Cellar Dwellers is a very smart graphic novel. It’s not that the book is trying to flout its intelligence. Cellar Dwellers is the second book in the Nico Bravo series and I just didn’t get the first one. Granted, part of my opinion could’ve been shaped by the fact that our then ten-year-old said he “didn’t get the book” when he read it. Note to self: be sure to double-check the book recommendations from your son before you bake them into your opinion.
Maybe it’s because I’m a year older or possibly because I read the book before our son, that I realized that this series is awesome. Nico Bravo and the Cellar Dwellers does have a lot of characters. There are three main protagonists and a couple of dozen second-tier or other minor characters. The drawing style is very clean and sharp by Mike Cavallaro. It’s the fact that the illustrations are all so individualistic and detailed that help readers define the mythical world that’s been created.
A Middle grade graphic novel with smarts, wit and punchMy Pencil and Me by Sara Varon joins an elite club of books that is currently held by How This Book Was Made and Attack of the Stuff. All three of those releases are absurdly happy books that kids will enjoy, perhaps scratch their heads at, but certainly come back for more. Sara Varon’s My Pencil and Me is the softest and youngest skewing book on that list. If you have a child four-years-old and up who likes dogs, doodling, playful monsters, and having fun, then My Pencil and Me is one that you need to dig into ASAP.
Graphic novels are meant to be entertaining and are incapable of being educational. Granted readers might gleam something from the art and the book’s cultural relevance, but on the whole, it’s for fun. It’s OK if you have thought that. Education and entertainment sometimes don’t mix. That’s why the best teachers, the ones that you still remember from middle school managed to entertain you while they were teaching you. They lower your defenses and then –BAM, start the soft messaging of teaching you something. Science Comics: Cats is like that and for middle school readers and up who want to learn about animals that will leave you feline fine keep on reading.
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