A relatable tale that will ring true with both creative and athletic readers.
Are sports the only way to make friends?
After Ellie’s parents divorce, she, her older brother, Robbie, and their mother relocate. At the kids’ new school, Robbie fits in right away, but Ellie feels alienated by her snarky, cliquish classmates. The school has a strong athletic culture, and though Ellie prefers reading about the superhero Super Stella and watching movies, her mother’s convinced that playing a sport will help her make friends. So Ellie tries volleyball, tennis, archery, and swimming—with little success. After each failure, she asks to take dance lessons. Her father, who visits and calls, is sympathetic, but her mother thinks dance is too competitive and a distraction from school. Ellie’s first romance and a small group of arty friends solidify her love of dance and help her find a sneaky way to pursue her passion. Translated from Italian, this tale is well suited for more experienced graphic novel readers; there are no chapter headings, and clues about the passage of time are often subtle. The story is relatable, though, and the loose-lined, often exaggerated images are filled with humor. Auditory details like a classroom chair squeaking when it’s scooted back, Robbie tearing through moving boxes, and onomatopoeia add to the fun. Ellie and her family are light-skinned; her class is diverse.
A relatable tale that will ring true with both creative and athletic readers. (Graphic fiction. 8-11)Pub Date: Oct. 3, 2023
ISBN: 9781958325001
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Marble Press
Review Posted Online: Aug. 12, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2023
Epic lunacy.
Will extragalactic rats eat the moon?
Can a cybernetic toenail clipper find a worthy purpose in the vast universe? Will the first feline astronaut ever get a slice of pizza? Read on. Reworked from the Live Cartoon series of homespun video shorts released on Instagram in 2020 but retaining that “we’re making this up as we go” quality, the episodic tale begins with the electrifying discovery that our moon is being nibbled away. Off blast one strong, silent, furry hero—“Meow”—and a stowaway robot to our nearest celestial neighbor to hook up with the imperious Queen of the Moon and head toward the dark side, past challenges from pirates on the Sea of Tranquility and a sphinx with a riddle (“It weighs a ton, but floats on air. / It’s bald but has a lot of hair.” The answer? “Meow”). They endure multiple close but frustratingly glancing encounters with pizza and finally deliver the malign, multiheaded Rat King and its toothy armies to a suitable fate. Cue the massive pizza party! Aside from one pirate captain and a general back on Earth, the human and humanoid cast in Harris’ loosely drawn cartoon panels, from the appropriately moon-faced queen on, is light skinned. Merch, music, and the original episodes are available on an associated website.
Epic lunacy. (Graphic science fiction. 8-11)Pub Date: May 10, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-308408-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Alert readers will find the implicit morals: know your audience, mostly, but also never underestimate the power of “rock”...
The theme of persistence (for better or worse) links four tales of magic, trickery, and near disasters.
Lachenmeyer freely borrows familiar folkloric elements, subjecting them to mildly comical twists. In the nearly wordless “Hip Hop Wish,” a frog inadvertently rubs a magic lamp and finds itself saddled with an importunate genie eager to shower it with inappropriate goods and riches. In the title tale, an increasingly annoyed music-hating witch transforms a persistent minstrel into a still-warbling cow, horse, sheep, goat, pig, duck, and rock in succession—then is horrified to catch herself humming a tune. Athesius the sorcerer outwits Warthius, a rival trying to steal his spells via a parrot, by casting silly ones in Ig-pay Atin-lay in the third episode, and in the finale, a painter’s repeated efforts to create a flattering portrait of an ogre king nearly get him thrown into a dungeon…until he suddenly understands what an ogre’s idea of “flattering” might be. The narratives, dialogue, and sound effects leave plenty of elbow room in Blocker’s big, brightly colored panels for the expressive animal and human(ish) figures—most of the latter being light skinned except for the golden genie, the blue ogre, and several people of color in the “Sorcerer’s New Pet.”
Alert readers will find the implicit morals: know your audience, mostly, but also never underestimate the power of “rock” music. (Graphic short stories. 8-10)Pub Date: June 18, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-59643-750-0
Page Count: 112
Publisher: First Second
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
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