A first-rate visual reframing: sensitive, artistically brilliant, and as charged as its enigmatic predecessor with profound...
An eerie graphic version of the Newbery Award–winning classic.
Russell (Murder Mysteries and Other Stories, 2015, etc.) pays no more attention than Lowry (Looking Back, 2016, etc.) did to continuity of detail or to justifying the counterintuitive notion that memories can be shed by transmitting them, but without taking significant liberties he skillfully captures the original’s full, creeping horror. By depicting human figures with uncommonly precise realism, bearing calm, smiling demeanors and moving through tidy 1950s style settings, he establishes an almost trite air of utopian normality at the outset…then proceeds to undermine it with disquieting (to say the least) incidents capped by an explicit view of Jonas’ serene dad “releasing” a supernumerary newborn by ramming a hypodermic into its head. He also neatly solves the color issue by composing his many small sequential scenes in blue pencil outlines with occasional pale washes—which makes Jonas’ disturbing ability to “see beyond,” from the red in an apple and a classmate’s hair to the garish orange memories the Giver downloads to his brain, startlingly vivid and presages the polychrome wilderness into which he ultimately vanishes. Jonas and the rest of the cast are uniformly light-skinned and generically European of feature, but that is explicitly established as part of the hideous scenario.
A first-rate visual reframing: sensitive, artistically brilliant, and as charged as its enigmatic predecessor with profound challenges to mind and heart. (interviews with the creators) (Graphic dystopian fantasy. 12-14)Pub Date: Feb. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-544-15788-0
Page Count: 192
Publisher: HMH Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 20, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2018
Another fresh and funny outing in a mostly solid satiric series.
Proving that the power of teen love trumps even Heavenly directives, a budding graphic artist hooks up with an ethereally handsome new classmate.
Morning Glory’s miserable life at her clique-heavy high school takes a turn for the better with the arrival of hot, strangely naïve Gabriel DiAngelo. A supposedly chance meeting at the local thrift store escalates into movie dates and breathless snogging. Complications arise with the subsequent appearance of Gabriel’s catty but equally stunning relative Luci DiAngelo, who displays a gift for inciting divisiveness and violence. In the black-and-white art, Morning Glory—dark-skinned and serious-looking in rimless glasses—and Gabriel, with his manga-style features and artfully disheveled blond hair, make a cute couple. In the end, Luci is sent back where she came from. After a climactic revelation (“You had wings!” “Did not.” “Did too! What are you?” “Can’t you guess?”), Gabriel confesses that he’s a Guardian actually sent to help Morning Glory’s friend Julia through some family troubles, freshening up the now-tired guardian-angel-falls-in-love-with-human-ward trope considerably.
Another fresh and funny outing in a mostly solid satiric series. (Graphic paranormal romance. 12-14)Pub Date: May 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4677-0732-9
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Graphic Universe
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
This weak entry in a generally well-founded series puts a high schooler between two hunky guys who turn out to be the same hunky guy.
Hardly has Serena started at her new school in a small Texas town than she hooks up with hulking star quarterback Lance. She also agrees to become a study partner with mostly home-schooled, equally outsized Cameron—on an assignment analyzing (hint, hint) Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Soon, she notices that the two are never seen together and, as time goes on, that Lance shuttles between sweet talk and an ugly temper that turns violent at any mention of Cam’s name. The teens in Cella’s black-and-white panels are engagingly distinct of look and personality, but Mayhall takes so long to set up the background and introduce the characters that the actual melodrama, revelations, climactic face-off and tidy resolution are crammed into the last 35 pages. Some chemistry (of the romantic sort), but the suspense is contrived and perfunctory. (Graphic paranormal romance. 12-14)
Pub Date: May 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-7613-8548-6
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Graphic Universe
Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
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