A vibrant, charming cast leads this first entry in what’s sure to be a riveting saga.
Native Alaskan boys discover adventure—both real and imagined—in Macheras and Silver’s YA graphic novel and series launch.
Nearly everyone in Chickaloon village is prepping for the annual festival to celebrate the First Frost. Thirteen-year-old Sasquatch E. Moji and 12-year-old Mr. Yelly chase down a small animal so that Grandma, the village elder, can make a delicious festival treat. Of course, the boys embellish this story for Grandma, telling her how they battled a hulking, carnivorous creature (“That thing charged at him with the fury of rolling thunder!”). When all three go in search of glo-berries to make a pie, they find an inexplicably picked-clean glo-berry patch. This leads to a surprising turn, convincing Grandma that both Moji and Mr. Yelly are in “grave danger.” Although she’s short on specifics, she sends them on a quest—the same one that another villager embarked on but never returned from. They travel south seeking a great warrior, beginning a grand but daunting journey. Macheras and Silver build a solid series foundation. This opening installment is rich in culture, providing plentiful details about the village’s customs and the Ahtna language. The young heroes are instantly likable: High-energy Mr. Yelly is always ready, it seems, for action; Moji, who’s twice the size of his companion, doesn’t communicate verbally—his word balloons contain only pictures and symbols, though they’re easily decipherable from context. The artwork is phenomenal, brimming with indelible, exaggerated facial expressions, blistering action sequences, and extravagant full- and double-page spectacles. This introductory tale merely touches on certain aspects of its world, from a legendary figure to the ultramodern tech that Moji and Mr. Yelly are outfitted with. This volume is loaded with extras, including myriad sketches, drawing guides, coloring pages, and character spotlights.
A vibrant, charming cast leads this first entry in what’s sure to be a riveting saga.Pub Date: Jan. 1, 2021
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 156
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Dec. 16, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
More trampling in the vineyards of the Literary Classics section, with results that will tickle fancies high and low.
Recasting Dog Man and his feline ward, Li’l Petey, as costumed superheroes, Pilkey looks East of Eden in this follow-up to Tale of Two Kitties (2017).
The Steinbeck novel’s Cain/Abel motif gets some play here, as Petey, “world’s evilest cat” and cloned Li’l Petey’s original, tries assiduously to tempt his angelic counterpart over to the dark side only to be met, ultimately at least, by Li’l Petey’s “Thou mayest.” (There are also occasional direct quotes from the novel.) But inner struggles between good and evil assume distinctly subordinate roles to riotous outer ones, as Petey repurposes robots built for a movie about the exploits of Dog Man—“the thinking man’s Rin Tin Tin”—while leading a general rush to the studio’s costume department for appropriate good guy/bad guy outfits in preparation for the climactic battle. During said battle and along the way Pilkey tucks in multiple Flip-O-Rama inserts as well as general gags. He lists no fewer than nine ways to ask “who cut the cheese?” and includes both punny chapter titles (“The Bark Knight Rises”) and nods to Hamiltonand Mary Poppins. The cartoon art, neatly and brightly colored by Garibaldi, is both as easy to read as the snappy dialogue and properly endowed with outsized sound effects, figures displaying a range of skin colors, and glimpses of underwear (even on robots).
More trampling in the vineyards of the Literary Classics section, with results that will tickle fancies high and low. (drawing instructions) (Graphic fantasy. 7-10)Pub Date: Dec. 26, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-545-93518-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Graphix/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2018
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