by Richard Ayoade ; illustrated by Tor Freeman ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 14, 2023
Lovingly crafted metafictive silliness both experimental and engaging.
Comedian and actor Ayoade explores storytelling and books themselves.
Readers are quickly introduced to the premise: The narrator of this book…is the book itself. Directly addressing the audience, the narrator waxes philosophical about judging books by covers before plunging readers into a story told in second person about a child who finds “a particular Book That No One Wanted To Read” on a library shelf. Interspersed with imagined, telepathic dialogue between reader and book, this delightfully droll work casually covers everything from footnotes to story structure; information about excess unwanted books being “pulped” by publishers leads to a gag about the book not wanting to be recycled into toilet paper. The design is clean, with different fonts effectively used to maintain speaker clarity, and facts about books blend beautifully with wacky, tongue-in-cheek illustrations. The character “you” is a reader stand-in with a humorous composite depiction (and so lacks race, gender, or any other identity, though other people depicted throughout are diverse in skin tone). In many ways a spiritual successor to B.J. Novak’s The Book With No Pictures (2014), the book (and Book, the character) will encourage readers to approach literature with a sense of play.
Lovingly crafted metafictive silliness both experimental and engaging. (Illustrated fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: March 14, 2023
ISBN: 978-1-5362-2216-6
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Walker US/Candlewick
Review Posted Online: Dec. 23, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2023
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by Craig Robinson & Adam Mansbach ; illustrated by Keith Knight ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 28, 2017
A fast and funny alternative to the Wimpy Kid.
Black sixth-grader Jake Liston can only play one song on the piano. He can’t read music very well, and he can’t improvise. So how did Jake get accepted to the Music and Art Academy? He faked it.
Alongside an eclectic group of academy classmates, and with advice from his best friend, Jake tries to fit in at a school where things like garbage sculpting and writing art reviews of bird poop splatter are the norm. All is well until Jake discovers that the end-of-the-semester talent show is only two weeks away, and Jake is short one very important thing…talent. Or is he? It’s up to Jake to either find the talent that lies within or embarrass himself in front of the entire school. Light and humorous, with Knight’s illustrations adding to the fun, Jake’s story will likely appeal to many middle-grade readers, especially those who might otherwise be reluctant to pick up a book. While the artsy antics may be over-the-top at times, this is a story about something that most preteens can relate to: the struggle to find your authentic self. And in a world filled with books about wanting to fit in with the athletically gifted supercliques, this novel unabashedly celebrates the artsy crowd in all of its quirky, creative glory.
A fast and funny alternative to the Wimpy Kid. (Fiction. 8-12)Pub Date: March 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-553-52351-5
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2016
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by Nathaniel Lachenmeyer ; illustrated by Simini Blocker ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 18, 2019
Alert readers will find the implicit morals: know your audience, mostly, but also never underestimate the power of “rock”...
The theme of persistence (for better or worse) links four tales of magic, trickery, and near disasters.
Lachenmeyer freely borrows familiar folkloric elements, subjecting them to mildly comical twists. In the nearly wordless “Hip Hop Wish,” a frog inadvertently rubs a magic lamp and finds itself saddled with an importunate genie eager to shower it with inappropriate goods and riches. In the title tale, an increasingly annoyed music-hating witch transforms a persistent minstrel into a still-warbling cow, horse, sheep, goat, pig, duck, and rock in succession—then is horrified to catch herself humming a tune. Athesius the sorcerer outwits Warthius, a rival trying to steal his spells via a parrot, by casting silly ones in Ig-pay Atin-lay in the third episode, and in the finale, a painter’s repeated efforts to create a flattering portrait of an ogre king nearly get him thrown into a dungeon…until he suddenly understands what an ogre’s idea of “flattering” might be. The narratives, dialogue, and sound effects leave plenty of elbow room in Blocker’s big, brightly colored panels for the expressive animal and human(ish) figures—most of the latter being light skinned except for the golden genie, the blue ogre, and several people of color in the “Sorcerer’s New Pet.”
Alert readers will find the implicit morals: know your audience, mostly, but also never underestimate the power of “rock” music. (Graphic short stories. 8-10)Pub Date: June 18, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-59643-750-0
Page Count: 112
Publisher: First Second
Review Posted Online: April 27, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2019
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