Nathan Hale, the famous spy of the American Revolution, tells his own story in this graphic-novel treatment of history.
The conceit of author Hale’s new series of Hazardous Tales is that his narrator has been swallowed by a big book of history prior to being hanged and thus knows the future of the country he helped bring into being. It’s a Scheherazade sort of premise, as Hale, convicted of espionage, forestalls death by telling stories from American history. In this volume, he’s helped by the hangman in telling the story of the early days of the revolution. He takes readers from his college days at Yale to the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, his joining the 7th Connecticut regiment, the Battle of Bunker Hill and other pivotal scenes in New England and New York City, where Hale works as an “intelligence officer” following the movements of the British troops to help General Washington develop his war strategies. Hale is caught and to be hanged…but not before he has, in this series, tales to tell. As in Big Bad Ironclad, which publishes simultaneously, the backmatter presents biographical sketches of the major players, further commentary on the execution of Nathan Hale, and even a mini-comic on Crispus Attucks of Boston Massacre fame. An innovative approach to history that will have young people reading with pleasure. (Graphic historical fiction. 8-12)
Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4197-0396-6
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: June 12, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2012
With young readers diagnosed with anxiety in ever increasing numbers, this book offers a necessary mirror to many.
Young Raina is 9 when she throws up for the first time that she remembers, due to a stomach bug. Even a year later, when she is in fifth grade, she fears getting sick.
Raina begins having regular stomachaches that keep her home from school. She worries about sharing food with her friends and eating certain kinds of foods, afraid of getting sick or food poisoning. Raina’s mother enrolls her in therapy. At first Raina isn’t sure about seeing a therapist, but over time she develops healthy coping mechanisms to deal with her stress and anxiety. Her therapist helps her learn to ground herself and relax, and in turn she teaches her classmates for a school project. Amping up the green, wavy lines to evoke Raina’s nausea, Telgemeier brilliantly produces extremely accurate visual representations of stress and anxiety. Thought bubbles surround Raina in some panels, crowding her with anxious “what if”s, while in others her negative self-talk appears to be literally crushing her. Even as she copes with anxiety disorder and what is eventually diagnosed as mild irritable bowel syndrome, she experiences the typical stresses of school life, going from cheer to panic in the blink of an eye. Raina is white, and her classmates are diverse; one best friend is Korean American.
With young readers diagnosed with anxiety in ever increasing numbers, this book offers a necessary mirror to many. (Graphic memoir. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-545-85251-7
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Graphix/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 11, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2019
A painful and painfully recognizable tale of one girl’s struggle to make and keep “one good friend.” (author’s note)...
A truth-telling graphic memoir whose theme song could be Johnny Lee’s old country song “Lookin’ for Love in all the Wrong Places.”
Shannon, depicted in Pham’s clear, appealing panels as a redheaded white girl, starts kindergarten in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1979, and her story ends just before sixth grade. Desperately longing to be in “the group” at school, Shannon suffers persistent bullying, particularly from a mean girl, Jenny, which leads to chronic stomachaches, missing school, and doctor visits. Contemporary readers will recognize behaviors indicative of obsessive-compulsive disorder, but the doctor calls it anxiety and tells Shannon to stop worrying. Instead of being a place of solace, home adds to Shannon’s stress. The middle child of five, she suffers abuse from her oldest sibling, Wendy, whom Pham often portrays as a fierce, gigantic bear and whom readers see their mother worrying about from the beginning. The protagonist’s faith (presented as generically Christian) surfaces overtly a few times but mostly seems to provide a moral compass for Shannon as she negotiates these complicated relationships. This episodic story sometimes sticks too close to the truth for comfort, but readers will appreciate Shannon’s fantastic imagination that lightens her tough journey toward courage and self-acceptance.
A painful and painfully recognizable tale of one girl’s struggle to make and keep “one good friend.” (author’s note) (Graphic memoir. 8-12)Pub Date: May 2, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-62672-416-7
Page Count: 224
Publisher: First Second
Review Posted Online: Feb. 13, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2017
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