At best, a poor substitute for Cliffs Notes and like slacker fare. (Graphic novel. 11-14)
A labored retelling of the classic survival tale in graphic format, heavily glossed and capped with multiple value-added mini-essays.
Along with capturing neither the original’s melodrama nor the stranded Crusoe’s MacGyver-esque ingenuity in making do, Graham’s version quickly waxes tedious thanks to forced inclusion of minor details and paraphrased rather than directly quoted dialogue in an artificially antiquated style (“You Friday. Me Master”). Frequent superscript numbers lead to often-superfluous footnotes: “Crusoe, a European, assumes that he is superior to other races. This attitude was usual at the time when the story was written.” Shoehorned into monotonous rows of small panels, the art battles for real estate with both dialogue balloons and boxed present-tense descriptions of what’s going on (the pictures themselves being rarely self-explanatory). Seven pages of closing matter cover topics from Defoe’s checkered career to stage and film versions of his masterpiece—and even feature an index for the convenience of assignment-driven readers.
At best, a poor substitute for Cliffs Notes and like slacker fare. (Graphic novel. 11-14)Pub Date: June 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-7641-4451-6
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Barron's
Review Posted Online: April 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
An action-oriented closer, conventionally tidy at the end but distinctive for its richly imagined world.
Rounding off a tale begun in NewsPrints (2017), budding journalist Blue continues to search for her robotic friend, Crow, as the long war between Goswing and Grimmaea comes to a head.
Just 17 and blind, but determined not to appear weak, Corazana Lina, newly crowned queen of Goswing, lays a fresh claim to mines needed to fuel her rapidly growing fleet of flying warships. But as Grimmaea is building an air force of its own and the mines’ range is also home to a cluster of active volcanoes, widespread disaster looms…and, ultimately, strikes. Meanwhile Blue, caught between opposing armies and monarchs, weathers a rapid succession of dramatic encounters and narrow squeaks as she brings her quest to a successful conclusion at last. Exaggerated facial expressions occasionally give the figures in Xu’s bordered panels an artificially stylized, manga-esque look, but the action is easy to follow, and sharply rendered background details add depth and detail to the steampunk-ish setting. The author weaves a strong anti-war message through her tale, casting righteous shade on the evil, which both sides here practice, of recruiting children for military service and playing up the importance of an independent press. Though a bit unwieldy, her populous cast features several characters with mixed ancestry (including Blue), a trans character, and one that is constructed but human in all the ways that count.
An action-oriented closer, conventionally tidy at the end but distinctive for its richly imagined world. (Graphic science fiction. 11-13)Pub Date: Jan. 29, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-545-80316-8
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Graphix/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Nov. 25, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
Lacking in character development and depth.
When people in a small Italian town lose everything in an earthquake, its youth must find a way to heal.
The 2016 earthquake in central Italy offers a backdrop for this graphic novel. Matteo; his girlfriend, Giulia; and their school friends are frightened: Their world has been destroyed, and they feel aftershocks daily. Many of their neighbors have moved away, but Matteo’s mother and stepfather work in the village, and they must stay. Matteo is luckier than most—his father brings them an old camper trailer so they can leave emergency housing. But tensions run high for others, and problems began to arise. Matteo’s friend seeks his lost dog in the forbidden zone. His little sister has trouble sleeping, and someone at their school commits vandalism. Matteo and Giulia set off to find the culprit and help a friend in need, leaning on an art teacher who teaches them an important lesson from Japan. Unfortunately the language feels stiff, and the friendships at the heart of the story are too generic. Readers learn little about these characters before the earthquake, and they fail to emerge as individuals afterward. The simple frames, awash in blue for nighttime scenes and shades of ocher for day, feel static for such an energetic premise. Most characters appear white; there is a Muslim refugee family; and Giulia is brown skinned.
Lacking in character development and depth. (author’s note) (Graphic novel. 12-14)Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3368-0
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: June 9, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
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