A must-read for fans of a blossoming hero.
Welcome, one and all, to the marvelous Haly’s Circus, home of the dazzling Flying Graysons!
Summer’s arrived for young Dick Grayson, who feels trapped performing alongside his mother and father as part of Haly’s legendary act. Dwindling attendance numbers, however, offer much to worry about. Haly’s fortunes take a turn for the worse when a competing carnival sets up nearby. Crowds flock over to the Lost Carnival, a world “of unexplainable delights, and unfathomable dangers.” Dick quickly falls hard for the magical Luciana, a girl with a tragic, mysterious past, and the smitten pair soon embark on a summer romance destined for heartache. As tensions flare up between the circus and carnival, Dick notices something off about the otherworldly carnival. When his best friend, Willow, falls prey to a powerful spell, Dick must unearth the truth. In this brooding coming-of-age tale, Moreci’s portrait of Dick from the early days before he met Batman gives prominence to his relationship with his parents and, by extension, his life at Haly’s and the independence he craves. Though Luciana exists more as Dick’s dream girl than a fully fledged character, their professed hopes and doubts prove to be startlingly moving. The moody artwork—awash in glum blues for Dick and golden yellows for Luciana—nicely reinforces the tale’s themes. Both Luciana and Willow are girls of color in an almost entirely white cast.
A must-read for fans of a blossoming hero. (Graphic fantasy. 12-16)Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4012-9102-0
Page Count: 208
Publisher: DC
Review Posted Online: Feb. 25, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
A timely and well-paced story of personal discovery.
Time travel brings a girl closer to someone she’s never known.
Sixteen-year-old Kiku, who is Japanese and white, only knows bits and pieces of her family history. While on a trip with her mother to San Francisco from their Seattle home, they search for her grandmother’s childhood home. While waiting for her mother, who goes inside to explore the mall now standing there, a mysterious fog envelops Kiku and displaces her to a theater in the past where a girl is playing the violin. The gifted musician is Ernestina Teranishi, who Kiku later confirms is her late grandmother. To Kiku’s dismay, the fog continues to transport her, eventually dropping her down next door to Ernestina’s family in a World War II Japanese American internment camp. The clean illustrations in soothing browns and blues convey the characters’ intense emotions. Hughes takes inspiration from her own family’s story, deftly balancing complicated national history with explorations of cultural dislocation and biracial identity. As Kiku processes her experiences, Hughes draws parallels to President Donald Trump’s Muslim ban and the incarceration of migrant children. The emotional connection between Kiku and her grandmother is underdeveloped; despite their being neighbors, Ernestina appears briefly and feels elusive to both Kiku and readers up to the very end. Despite some loose ends, readers will gain insights to the Japanese American incarceration and feel called to activism.
A timely and well-paced story of personal discovery. (photographs, author’s note, glossary, further reading) (Graphic historical fantasy. 12-16)Pub Date: Aug. 18, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-19353-7
Page Count: 288
Publisher: First Second
Review Posted Online: May 16, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2020
Pairing art from an earlier, self-published edition to a newly adapted text, Hinds retells the old tale as a series of dark, bloody, chaotic clashes. Here Grendel is a glaring, black monster with huge teeth, corded muscles and a tendency to smash or bite off adversaries’ heads; the dragon is all sinuous viciousness; and Beowulf, mighty of thew, towers over his fellow Geats. The narrative, boxed off from the illustrations rather than incorporated into them, runs to lines like, “Bid my brave warriors O Wiglaf, to build a lofty cairn for me upon the sea-cliffs . . . ” and tends to disappear when the fighting starts. Because the panels are jumbled together on the page, the action is sometimes hard to follow, but this makes a strongly atmospheric alternative to the semi-abstract Beowulf, the Legend, by Stephen L. Antczak and James C. Bassett, illus by Andy Lee (2006), or the more conventionally formatted version of Michael Morpurgo, with pictures by Michael Foreman (2006). (Graphic fiction. 12-15)
Pub Date: April 1, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-7636-3022-5
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2007
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