THE LOST COLONY, BOOK NO. 1

In this brightly colored and busily illustrated graphic novel, Klein introduces young Bertha “Birdy” Snodgrass. After baby brother Floyd is born, she must take on chores—and Birdy does not want to do them. Discovering a flyer for a slave auction on her isolated and seemingly harmonious island colony, she decides that she simply must buy a slave to remedy her woes. When local medicine man Pepe Wong learns of the impending sale, he sends his odd, obedient assistant Stewart out to feed the auctioneer a chemical concoction that will erase his memory, and render him unaware of the existence of their remote locale. Expectedly, events go awry, leading to the prosaic dénouement where Birdy and friend Louis meet an unruly robot slave, operated by Stewart. An equivocally and flatly developed plot combines with irregularly and inconsistently sized panels to form an ambitious book that doesn’t quite deliver. The saving grace of the piece is Klein’s art, an imaginative blend of rounded Muppet-like characters and kaleidoscopic colors. An unusual take on American history and colonial experience, Klein’s first graphic novel, while aspirant, may not hold wide audience appeal. (Graphic novel. YA)