With strengths outweighing flaws, this is a dark yet digestible visual delight with an endearing investigative trio.
A visually refreshing treat from South Korea, Ly and Park’s debut graphic novel features Suee Lee, a 12-year-old girl with sharp intelligence, a world-weary view, and a pointy hairdo.
Suee Lee is not pleased that she has been transferred from Bustle Elementary on Bustle Street to Outskirts Elementary in Outskirtsville. She chooses to keep to herself rather than try to befriend either “queen bee,” “jerk,” “dim bulb,” or “loser” but gets tangled up in trouble when a strange voice beckons her into the eerie exhibit room at school. Suee wakes up in the nurse’s office, and soon after, her shadow begins to speak, taunting Suee and threatening her classmates. While Suee Lee verbally spars with her own shadow, the creepy vice principal expands his disturbing after-school classes for “zeros.” When students begin to act like zombies and lose their shadows, Suee reluctantly befriends the shy and bullied Haeun as well as the confident and handsome Hyunwoo. The unlikely threesome launch the Zero Detective Club to investigate. The graphics are simultaneously menacing and exquisitely clean, superbly honed in a shiny palette of jet, ash, and crimson. It’s to the author’s credit that readers will be unsure about whom to root for until the very end. The wry writing deftly captures preteen angst, but the story meanders, at times devolving into awkward dialogue, and the embedded moral to the story is tediously corny.
With strengths outweighing flaws, this is a dark yet digestible visual delight with an endearing investigative trio. (Graphic horror. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 19, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4197-2563-0
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Aug. 20, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
Telgemeier’s bold colors, superior visual storytelling, and unusual subject matter will keep readers emotionally engaged and...
Catrina narrates the story of her mixed-race (Latino/white) family’s move from Southern California to Bahía de la Luna on the Northern California coast.
Dad has a new job, but it’s little sister Maya’s lungs that motivate the move: she has had cystic fibrosis since birth—a degenerative breathing condition. Despite her health, Maya loves adventure, even if her lungs suffer for it and even when Cat must follow to keep her safe. When Carlos, a tall, brown, and handsome teen Ghost Tour guide introduces the sisters to the Bahía ghosts—most of whom were Spanish-speaking Mexicans when alive—they fascinate Maya and she them, but the terrified Cat wants only to get herself and Maya back to safety. When the ghost adventure leads to Maya’s hospitalization, Cat blames both herself and Carlos, which makes seeing him at school difficult. As Cat awakens to the meaning of Halloween and Day of the Dead in this strange new home, she comes to understand the importance of the ghosts both to herself and to Maya. Telgemeier neatly balances enough issues that a lesser artist would split them into separate stories and delivers as much delight textually as visually. The backmatter includes snippets from Telgemeier’s sketchbook and a photo of her in Día makeup.
Telgemeier’s bold colors, superior visual storytelling, and unusual subject matter will keep readers emotionally engaged and unable to put down this compelling tale. (Graphic fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: Sept. 13, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-545-54061-2
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 1, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2016
Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven.
An aspiring scientist and a budding artist become friends and help each other with dream projects.
Unfolding in mid-1980s Sacramento, California, this story stars 12-year-olds Rosalind and Benjamin as first-person narrators in alternating chapters. Ro’s father, a fellow space buff, was killed by a drunk driver; the rocket they were working on together lies unfinished in her closet. As for Benji, not only has his best friend, Amir, moved away, but the comic book holding the clue for locating his dad is also missing. Along with their profound personal losses, the protagonists share a fixation with the universe’s intriguing potential: Ro decides to complete the rocket and hopes to launch mementos of her father into outer space while Benji’s conviction that aliens and UFOs are real compels his imagination and creativity as an artist. An accident in science class triggers a chain of events forcing Benji and Ro, who is new to the school, to interact and unintentionally learn each other’s secrets. They resolve to find Benji’s dad—a famous comic-book artist—and partner to finish Ro’s rocket for the science fair. Together, they overcome technical, scheduling, and geographical challenges. Readers will be drawn in by amusing and fantastical elements in the comic book theme, high emotional stakes that arouse sympathy, and well-drawn character development as the protagonists navigate life lessons around grief, patience, self-advocacy, and standing up for others. Ro is biracial (Chinese/White); Benji is White.
Charming, poignant, and thoughtfully woven. (Fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Jan. 12, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-300888-5
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
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