Creepy, bizarre, and compelling.
Nothing is as it seems at Black Sand Beach.
Dash is begrudgingly resigned to a summer spent at his family’s ramshackle vacation house at Black Sand Beach, “a place of mystery and intrigue where your darkest nightmares run alongside you as the waves lap at your toes.” Eager to escape the sometimes-overbearing family adults, Dash and the other kids—his verve-filled younger cousin, Andy; his even-tempered, fuchsia-haired older cousin, Eleanor; and his best friend, Lily—decide to explore. But strange things keep happening: The beach’s nonfunctioning lighthouse is, perhaps quite literally, calling to Dash, and when the kids investigate, they find vengeful ghosts, a monster, and Dash’s diary from last year—but it’s been six years since he’s been there. Perhaps most disturbing are the “changelings” introduced in the third and final chapter: sway-backed, bipedal, horse-headed creatures with protruding ribs and enormous, humanlike mouths on their abdomens. These unresolved mysteries will leave readers with more questions than answers and make them eager for the next volume in the projected series. All characters are white except for Lily, who appears black. In this context, an encounter with the changelings that finds the white vacationers mistaking a monstrous changeling for Lily carries troubling undertones. Thin lines, oversized facial features—Dash’s mother even looks remarkably like Lois from Family Guy—and clothing styles from the late 1990s create an early-aughts aesthetic.
Creepy, bizarre, and compelling. (Graphic suspense. 8-12)Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-64595-000-4
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Pixel+Ink
Review Posted Online: Feb. 12, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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 emotional, much-needed historical graphic novel.
Sandy and his family, Japanese Canadians, experience hatred and incarceration during World War II.
Sandy Saito loves baseball, and the Vancouver Asahi ballplayers are his heroes. But when they lose in the 1941 semifinals, Sandy’s dad calls it a bad omen. Sure enough, in December 1941, Japan bombs Pearl Harbor in the U.S. The Canadian government begins to ban Japanese people from certain areas, moving them to “dormitories” and setting a curfew. Sandy wants to spend time with his father, but as a doctor, his dad is busy, often sneaking out past curfew to work. One night Papa is taken to “where he [is] needed most,” and the family is forced into an internment camp. Life at the camp isn’t easy, and even with some of the Asahi players playing ball there, it just isn’t the same. Trying to understand and find joy again, Sandy struggles with his new reality and relationship with his father. Based on the true experiences of Japanese Canadians and the Vancouver Asahi team, this graphic novel is a glimpse of how their lives were affected by WWII. The end is a bit abrupt, but it’s still an inspiring and sweet look at how baseball helped them through hardship. The illustrations are all in a sepia tone, giving it an antique look and conveying the emotions and struggles. None of the illustrations of their experiences are overly graphic, making it a good introduction to this upsetting topic for middle-grade readers.
An emotional, much-needed historical graphic novel. (afterword, further resources) (Graphic historical fiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Oct. 5, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-5253-0334-0
Page Count: 112
Publisher: Kids Can
Review Posted Online: June 28, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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