This story is funny enough to get away with being utterly adorable.
The characters in this graphic novel are so exhausting that it’s endearing.
Melly the dog looks exactly the way a cartoon character is supposed to. Small, scruffy, and black, she has bright eyes and a head the same size as her body. She wants to play every game—wrestling, fetch, tug of war—even when everybody else is trying to take a nap. The cats in her house are not fond of her. They’re almost relieved when she falls through a hole, Wonderland-style, into another world. The land is ruled by one of the few people with as much energy as Melly, a king who’s constantly posing for statues and competing for trophies. Anyone who beats him risks being sent to the dungeon—either the “nicer dungeon,” where “you can smell cinnamon buns but not eat them,” or the “worst dungeon,” with “sad clown paintings.” Fortunately for readers, another key character is less frenetic, a jaded monster named Narra who’s lost faith in the human race—with good reason. If Eeyore were a gigantic yellow Pokemon, he’d be Narra. The artwork, with its bold colors, actually resembles the Pokemon cartoons, but the characters are even cuddlier. They’re defiant enough, though, to appeal to cynical readers, and the story ends with a revolution. (The king is White, but the rebels and the other human characters are racially diverse.) And the jokes are both subversive and hilarious.
This story is funny enough to get away with being utterly adorable. (Graphic fantasy. 6-11)Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-20254-8
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Razorbill/Penguin
Review Posted Online: June 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
Piles of excitement.
Gifted young gamers team up to thwart an interstellar prankster’s scheme to blast humanity into oblivion with toxic gas from Uranus, the smelliest planet anywhere.
Uh-oh…it seems that evil Baron Buttz is planning something involving Poopious Maximus, a giant mound of “fake dog doody,” and a Mega Whopper Whoopee Cushion. Down swoops Newton Bean, commander of the Superpixel Ninja Officer Tweens of Space, to recruit Rusty Crumb, a human gamer with awesomely overdeveloped “thumbceps,” and his fierce little sister, Kitty, to help get to the bottom of what’s going on. The stage is set for boss battles and actual ones, with the two gamers firing up their Super Game Dude consoles to tackle swarming hordes of Buttz bots and the sneering Prince of Pranks in both real and cyber space. Distinguishing between the two realms by using smooth or pixelated lines (but drawing them in much the same way), Mansch packs his cartoon panels with real and virtual space action and rapid patter on the way to a fart of interplanetary proportions that blasts the scheming schemer to a proper comeuppance—or, as one minion gleefully puts it, “Buttz is on Uranus! Hahaha!” Bean has light brown skin; his nemesis and the rest of the button-eyed human cast present as white.
Piles of excitement. (Graphic science fiction. 7-10)Pub Date: May 21, 2024
ISBN: 9781513141527
Page Count: 224
Publisher: West Margin Press
Review Posted Online: March 9, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2024
Nothing imaginary about the fun (and sneaky learning).
Lake monster lonely? Leprechaun sniffly? Only Dr. Woo, Veterinarian for Imaginary Creatures, can help.
Ten-year-old Pearl Petal, one of the few kids remaining in Buttonville after the button factory’s closure, has a reputation as a troublemaker. She’s just curious, creative...and bored, so she’s glad to have a new friend in Ben Silverstein and an apprenticeship at Dr. Woo’s clinic, which everyone in town thinks is a worm hospital. After successfully ditching nosy Mrs. Mulberry, who wants her awful daughter Victoria to apprentice too (just so they can nose around inside), Pearl and Ben start their first day of apprenticing by clipping the toenails of a Sasquatch. Things get more complicated fast. Pearl’s curiosity gets the better of her, and Ben ends up the prisoner of a gigantic (and thankfully gentle) lake monster. Can Pearl save him without alerting Dr. Woo and her snooty assistant, the odd Mr. Tabby? Selfors’ second is Pearl’s tale (the first was Ben’s), and this adds depth to both the characters and setting of this fun and slightly suspenseful series that has more hijinks than horror. Santat’s occasional black-and-white illustrations are an added bonus, as are the creature info with writing and art prompts, the science lesson on buoyancy and the mirror-making instructions in the backmatter. Readers could start here, but they should start with the first to get the whole story.
Nothing imaginary about the fun (and sneaky learning). (Fantasy. 7-11)Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-316-22567-0
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: July 16, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2013
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
