Belinda knows how to win and does it often, but she also understands the value of a good friend.
The confident, brown-skinned, cornrowed protagonist of this wordless graphic adventure leads the line to the school gym until she sees another, dejected-looking brown girl sitting on the hallway floor. Foreshadowing things to come, Belinda relinquishes her line-leader role to offer the surprised girl her hand and make her feel included in the game of musical chairs. While the teacher observes only a mundane game, readers and the players witness an extraordinary, larger-than-life competition in which huge, multicolored musical notes become flying obstacles that sometimes antagonistically interfere with the players as they rush for seats when the music stops. Allegiances form and dissolve, but Belinda remains true to her new friend, Barbara (whose name appears only in the rear endpapers), until the end of the game. The book’s cartoonish cover suggests a lighthearted story, but the tale delivers rich conflict (including person-versus-self on several occasions), strong emotions, complex relationships, and ferocious competition. Roberts uses framing, varying perspectives, close-up images, and stark, contrasting facial expressions to help readers absorb both the action and the characters’ emotions as the story unfolds. Refreshingly, colorist Silva renders the children of color with different skin tones.
An excellent adventure for reluctant readers, fierce competitors, lovers of wordless tales—and readers who just love an action-packed, rollicking story. (Graphic fantasy. 7-12)Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5124-1331-1
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Graphic Universe
Review Posted Online: Aug. 21, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2017
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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. 19, 2019
Categories: GENERAL GRAPHIC NOVELS & COMICS | CHILDREN'S FAMILY
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BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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 Hamilton and 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 14, 2018
Categories: GENERAL GRAPHIC NOVELS & COMICS | MYSTERY & CRIME
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