A must for anyone intrigued by the hidden spirit world and how it crosses over into ours.
A couple of foreign travelers search for ghosts and spirits in the countryside of Japan.
According to Japanese legend, onibi are ghost lights, rather like will-o’-the-wisps, and yokai are supernatural monsters, spirits, and demons. Originally written in French, this graphic novel follows two foreign children, Cécile and Olivier (presumably child avatars of the creative duo, Cécile Brun and Olivier Pichard, who work together as Atelier Sento), as they travel around Niigata Prefecture. While there, they purchase an old camera that’s purported to capture the yokai on film. Using their camera, they explore this rural area, listening to eerie legends and visiting its haunted places. Unfortunately, the yokai like to play tricks and can sometimes be mischievous and dangerous. Each chapter centers on one of the pictures taken on the trip and tells the story of how it was captured. Overlaid with ghostly illustrations, these photos are real pictures printed using the cyanotype process, which gives them a mysterious blue color. (A three-page minicomic explains the process.) Basing their adventure on real people and places in Japan, the French duo creates a spooky yet intriguing spirit world overlaid on our reality. Using a combination of watercolor and colored pencil, the illustrations are done in a beautiful traditional Japanese style, and the device of the camera in the hands of white tourists is an artful one, given the theme of intersecting worlds.
A must for anyone intrigued by the hidden spirit world and how it crosses over into ours. (maps, glossary) (Graphic fantasy. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2018
ISBN: 978-4-8053-1496-8
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Tuttle
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018
A nifty concept that never really quite leaves the conceptual stage. (Graphic novel. 11-14)
This may be a book that’s better on the second reading.
In medias res is a dangerous trick to play on unsuspecting readers. In the first six pages of this graphic meta-goof on The Odyssey, our stick-figure hero, Zozimos, nearly drowns, gets lost in a jungle, is captured by golems and gets thrown in jail. The pace never really lets up over the 200 pages of the book, as he tries to find his way home to Sticatha. Readers may feel as though they’re flipping channels on a remote, and every channel is showing an action movie. There’s too much medias, too much res and not enough time spent developing the characters. Ford almost seems afraid to let them sit down and just talk. Some readers may need to page through the story a second time to realize that Zozimos is sort of charming, and a few turns of phrase are quite funny (“By Hades’ pajamas”). It would be easy, though, to get distracted by Zozimos’ many selfish actions and his refusal to listen to anyone else. Early in the book, King Marnox says, “The way I see it, everything that happened was your own fault for being a shortsighted jerk.” It’s hard to disagree. A few leisurely pauses here and there might have given readers more opportunity to sympathize with the main character.
A nifty concept that never really quite leaves the conceptual stage. (Graphic novel. 11-14)Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-399-25426-0
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: July 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
Packaged to recall other diary tales of middle school (faux-spiral binding, scratchy, faux-handprinted type—often hard to...
Combine Roald Dahl’s Twits and other villains, mix with the first-person–journaling trope and the comedic result might look something like this.
In his “Bully’s Log,” seventh-grader Niko Kayler provides an episodic text-and-pictures look at what he regards as the craft of bullying. Anything smelly, humiliating or painful (if not exactly lethal) provides the essence of a good trick to play on his victims, and he doesn’t stint on firing any number of wildly exaggerated blows at the random nerds who annoy him. Niko’s rogues’ gallery of bullies he most admires includes both Lucifer and Santa Claus. Katz picks the low-hanging…er, fruit of boogers, poop and farts to fill out his young antihero’s arsenal of tricks and tips for successful bullying. Occasional exclamations of “God!” and the use of adjectives like “mother-puking” send Niko’s malevolence veering off into slightly older teen territory (he says of cyberbullying, “I think it’s cheap and dirty. Like falling in love in Las Vegas”), and how many middle schoolers will recognize a reference to M. Night Shyamalan? The energy also seems to flag a bit with one relentlessly malicious sort of mayhem following another.
Packaged to recall other diary tales of middle school (faux-spiral binding, scratchy, faux-handprinted type—often hard to read—and roughly drawn illustrations), this take on the rotten inner life of a true bully is a mixed bag. (Fiction. 10-13)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-312-68158-6
Page Count: 272
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
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