A mischievous and treacherous adventure.
At the command of a cruel witch, a vampire child seeks a stolen grimoire of dangerous power in this graphic paranormal fantasy.
Long ago, Dragoslava, a White, hairless vampire, drank the blood of an old, White woman, a witch in disguise who promised to “rend [their] flesh and sinews to crawling worms” unless Dragoslava agreed to serve her. When the witch demands that Dragoslava hunt down her stolen grimoire and curse the thief, their only two friends, Quintus (a Black vampire prince) and Eztli (a presumed Nahuatl vampire with bird feet), want to help them. However, two unlikely allies, an adult vampire (depicted with pale skin) and her witch girlfriend (depicted with darker skin and curly hair), complicate the three young vampires’ feelings about their quest. In order to fulfill the witch’s task, Dragoslava may have to betray people who matter to them. Underneath the magical conflict, the characters encounter themes of abuse, prejudice, and belonging. Although the evil witch wields frightening power, the real harm she causes comes from manipulation and unkindness toward those who trust her. Her curses are not the only threat to Dragoslava and their friends. Another unexpected enemy hides hatred for vampires behind small-town niceness. Quirky art and characterizations balance the heavier aspects of the narrative. Queer representation within the story is prevalent and casual, and the satisfying resolution emphasizes the joy of chosen families.
A mischievous and treacherous adventure. (Graphic paranormal adventure. 8-12)Pub Date: July 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-06-295435-0
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Quill Tree Books/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 18, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2021
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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