A light look at “vengeance” and what it really takes to “calm a wounded spirit.” (Graphic fantasy/folklore. 8-12)
A wild pig’s ghost must choose between seeking revenge against the hunter who killed her or freeing her still-living parents, who have been enslaved by a demon.
When Truff, the deceased wild-pig protagonist, scares off two teenage boys out to pick “luminous plums,” her “disembodied squeal” echoes so loudly it catches the attention of Claude and Stanley, two forest spirits interested in “keeping the peace.” Claude and Stanley sense Truff’s “serious negative vibes” and, after investigating, conclude this “haunting” results from a spirit “bound due to strong, unresolved feelings, or unfinished business.” Claude and Stanley convince Truff to search for her parents, but when they reach Truff’s home, they discover her parents have been captured by Mava, a mountain demon. Just as the three stand ready at the entrance to Mava’s domain, the distant sound of the hunter draws Truff’s focus back to desires of retribution, and she must decide between payback and family. The story’s approach to the afterlife, mention of vegetarian “monks,” and moral relativism reflect a modern outlook with roots in Eastern philosophies. Even the demon’s name may remind readers of the Buddhist figure of Mara. Weiser’s graphic novel, with its lively artwork reminiscent of Sunday comic strips, renders the complex themes both entertaining and understandable. Additionally, Stanley’s straight man to Claude’s funny man provides comedic moments.
A light look at “vengeance” and what it really takes to “calm a wounded spirit.” (Graphic fantasy/folklore. 8-12)Pub Date: May 7, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-62010-654-9
Page Count: 168
Publisher: Oni Press
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
An entertaining take on family values, Wimpy Kid style.
A summer vacation turns out to be anything but relaxing for Greg and a teeming horde of Heffleys.
Gramma declines the offer of a grand birthday celebration, saying that “what would make her REALLY happy is if everyone else went to Ruttyneck Island”—though she prepares individual packs of her legendary meatballs. (“You knew exactly how much Gramma likes you by how many meatballs you got.”) A gaggle of Heffley relatives and a dog stuff themselves into a small beach house, where overcrowding, personality conflicts, and simmering resentments become just some of the ingredients in a rolling boil of sitcom-style catastrophes, not to mention questionable decisions ranging from leaving the kids to make dinner unsupervised to labeling a cooler “HUMAN ORGANS” to keep random passersby from helping themselves. As usual, Greg supplies the setups in poker-faced journal entries interspersed with black-and-white drawings of slouched figures bearing frowny expressions of dismay or annoyance to cue the laffs. Gramma, it eventually turns out, not only (unsurprisingly) has plans of her own, but is also keeping a shocking secret about those meatballs. To go with the knee-slapping set pieces, Kinney slips in a tasty bit of family lore about how Greg’s parents met, plus droll takes on such low-hanging comedy fruit as restaurant manners, viciously competitive board games, and social media influencers (Greg being one, albeit with zero followers, and his Aunt Veronica’s little dog being another, with 3.8 million).
An entertaining take on family values, Wimpy Kid style. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Oct. 22, 2024
ISBN: 9781419766954
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Oct. 22, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2024
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