An offbeat, action-packed thriller with a winning cast of diverse characters.
Two deaf orphans get in trouble while attending a special-needs school in writer Sebela and illustrator Stoll’s graphic novel.
Haley and Max’s mother dies in the book’s opening pages, leaving the teenagers without a father or other relatives willing to raise them. They’re sent to the Wayfair Academy for Special Needs, where they meet a diverse group of other deaf young people. Haley quickly makes friends and finds out that one of her new pals, Lexa, is struggling to pay for school and may have to leave. Haley proposes a daring solution: a burglary. She gathers her new group of friends to do the heist, which initially seems like a success—until the person they robbed appears in Haley’s room and tells them that they’ll have to work for him to repay him for everything they took, or else. Soon, Haley and her buddies-turned-accomplices are learning the skills of professional thieves and go on missions around town. However, what starts as a thrill quickly becomes a trap—one that Haley and her team must find a way to escape. This briskly paced tale, which takes a few time-jumps, smartly zooms in on its tense heist and action sequences. The core cast is realistically diverse; one character uses they/them pronouns and is selectively mute, another is late-deafened, and several were born deaf. Sign language is also incorporated into the storytelling, with speech bubbles emerging from hand motions and black lines highlighting movement. However, there’s an occasional overreliance on narration as past-tense confession. Although this adds some depth to the story, there are moments when images alone could have carried it; several standout sequences allow Stoll’s cinematic visuals to take over for a few pages at a time. The images feature detailed character work and Ocean’s 11–style blocking, with bright pops of color—vivid reds, pinks, oranges, and blues—regularly lighting up the background, contrasting with often black-clad main characters. The story reaches a satisfying conclusion, but it sows enough seeds for potential sequels.
An offbeat, action-packed thriller with a winning cast of diverse characters.Pub Date: July 7, 2021
ISBN: 9781952303098
Page Count: 152
Publisher: Mad Cave Studios
Review Posted Online: Nov. 13, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
Even so, this remains Macbeth, arguably the Bard of Avon’s most durable and multilayered tragedy, and overall, this enhanced...
A pairing of the text of the Scottish Play with a filmed performance, designed with the Shakespeare novice in mind.
The left side of the screen of this enhanced e-book contains a full version of Macbeth, while the right side includes a performance of the dialogue shown (approximately 20 lines’ worth per page). This granular focus allows newcomers to experience the nuances of the play, which is rich in irony, hidden intentions and sudden shifts in emotional temperature. The set and costuming are deliberately simple: The background is white, and Macbeth’s “armor” is a leather jacket. But nobody’s dumbing down their performances. Francesca Faridany is particularly good as a tightly coiled Lady Macbeth; Raphael Nash-Thompson gives his roles as the drunken porter and a witch a garrulousness that carries an entertainingly sinister edge. The presentation is not without its hiccups. Matching the video on the right with the text on the left means routinely cutting off dramatic moments; at one point, users have to swipe to see and read the second half of a scene’s closing couplet—presumably an easy fix. A “tap to translate” button on each page puts the text into plain English, but the pop-up text covers up Shakespeare’s original, denying any attempts at comparison; moreover, the translation mainly redefines more obscure words, suggesting that smaller pop-ups for individual terms might be more meaningful.
Even so, this remains Macbeth, arguably the Bard of Avon’s most durable and multilayered tragedy, and overall, this enhanced e-book makes the play appealing and graspable to students . (Enhanced e-book. 12 & up)Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2013
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: The New Book Press LLC
Review Posted Online: Nov. 6, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2013
A cute premise best experienced in small bites.
The sweet and sour(dough) sides of life for anthropomorphic baked creatures.
This collected edition of the original online WEBTOON comic follows the daily adventures of three breadcats who live in a bakery. There’s Cat Loaf, the friend-seeking adventurer; Rye Loaf, the quiet loner; and Tabby Loaf (“Tabs”), the scaredy-cat. Stories are mostly driven by encounters with other dough-based animals, such as nefarious cinnamon bunnies and competitive doughnut cats. The narrative stretches to include heartfelt moments about a creative mousse mouse staying true to their creative roots and lonely cat Potato having a reflective moment after chasing others’ friendship. Characters’ faces largely resemble living emojis, and dialogue heaps on the food-based puns, but something is lost in the transition to print. Uniformity in the panel layouts sees walls of panels and text that can become numbing where the original vertical format was more carefully paced. Visual gags like a Pokémon battle parody and a soap opera TV show acted out by actual bars of soap briefly change up the format in fun ways, but some readers may feel stuffed on all the bread.
A cute premise best experienced in small bites. (Graphic fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Aug. 4, 2026
ISBN: 9798225019631
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Graphix/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2026
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2026
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
