The Bad Guys (#1)

The Bad Guys by Aaron Blabey
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Mr. Wolf is tired of being thought of as a Bad Guy just because he's a wolf, so he rounds up some other folks (Mr. Snake, Mr. Shark, and Mr. Piranha) who have faced the same prejudice, cajoling and convincing them to join his new Good Guys Club to seek out opportunities to do Good Deeds and change their reputations. They aren't at all certain this plan will work or whether they even want it to, but Wolf sweeps them along through sheer force of personality and enthusiasm. The team starts with rescuing a cat in a tree and moves on to liberating a dog pound.

My kids screeched with laughter as we read this fast-paced graphic novel, and I was quite glad I'd bought the full set. The series is a strong incentive for them to get ready for bed on time for a change so as to maximize bedtime story time.

For readers' advisors: story doorway is primary, language (humorous banter) is secondary. Target audience is elementary school children. Piranha gets swallowed temporarily, and both Piranha and Snake get smacked against the side of a building a few times, but no realistic violence.

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Bad Kitty School Daze

Bad Kitty School Daze by Nick Bruel
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Kitty and Puppy fight like, well, cats and dogs! All that hissing and chasing has gotten them in trouble, though, so it's off to obedience school to learn how to play well with others. Can Puppy learn to control his drool? Can Kitty learn how to improve her attitude? The teacher, Miss Dee, sure has her work cut out for her.

The illustrations in this book are just superb! It's practically a graphic novel because so much of the story is conveyed wordlessly through the animals' expressions and body language. I'd not heard of this series before, but they were on a face-out display at Powell's Books and caught my eye, so I picked this one up and right away started cracking up. It's such a fast read, I almost read the whole thing while standing in the aisle, but eventually I decided to go ahead and purchase it for my nephew and read the rest when I got home. A couple of weeks later, a little girl I know had it with her, and we started talking about it--she loved it as much as I did, although for slightly different reasons, given our age & experience differences. We sure agreed about how funny it was, though!

For readers' advisors: fast-paced read, perhaps good for reluctant readers due to the prevalence of visual clues and relative lack of written words (for a chapter book). Perhaps a read-alike for the Captain Underpants series?? I haven't read those in a while, so please feel free to comment if you agree or disagree!

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The Shepherd's Tale

The Shepherd's Tale by Zack Whedon

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


At last, the backstory on Shepherd Book! The graphic novel begins moments before Book's death and jumps backwards through the stages of his life, ending when he's a teenager. It really explains so much, and it makes me want to re-watch the series.

I am so impressed with this graphic novel. It's the first one I've read that actually makes me believe a picture (or in this case a panel) is worth a 1000 words, and Zack Whedon even makes each word worth 1000 words. I'm astounded that such a complete and nuanced story can be told so succinctly.

The artwork by Chris Samnee is less photo-realistic but manages to convey more. I had no problem following the story and keeping track of who was whom and what was going on. Hooray!

For readers' advisors: character, story, and setting doorways.



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Serenity: Better Days

Better Days by Joss Whedon

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Volume 2 of the Serenity graphic novel series was a little more confusing to follow than the first. The story bounced around between present and past, memory, fantasy, etc., and when I finished reading the story, I had to go back and reread most of it just to figure out what had happened. This was partly because the artwork didn't always resemble the cast members closely enough (esp. Simon), but also because the story jumped so much that I'd forgotten about a particular subplot that turned out to be key.

Bottom line? It would have made a wonderful episode of the Firefly tv show, and fans will probably still enjoy reading this graphic novel episode because Joss Whedon wrote it, so it has his snappy dialogue. There are some very funny scenes, particularly those when Jayne speaks.

For readers' advisors: setting and story doorways


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Serenity: Those Left Behind

Serenity: Those Left Behind by Joss Whedon

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I don't usually enjoy graphic novels, but I'll read anything that lets me live once more in the world of Firefly/Serenity, even for a little while. Since Joss Whedon himself wrote the story, it's like my favorite show came back to life for a half hour or so. (It's a very short novel.)

This episode fills in a little of the gap between the end of the tv show and the movie, which was helpful. It's about a job that goes wrong (don't they always?) and takes place when both Inara and Shepherd Book are getting ready to leave Serenity. There isn't time for much in the way of character development, of course, but the story is exciting, and the dialogue cracks me up. The artists from Dark Horse Comics (Go, Milwaukie!!) do a pretty good job with the artwork. The characters usually look pretty much like the actors, and I had no trouble telling who was whom or what was going on. The spine label says this is volume 1, so I will be finding out how many others there are and where I can get them!

For readers' advisors: setting and story doorways, primarily



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The Exile: An Outlander Graphic Novel

The Exile: An Outlander Graphic Novel by Diana Gabaldon

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


I should preface my review by saying that graphic novels are not really my thing. I love reading comics in the paper and all, but this is only the second graphic novel I have ever completed reading. It's not going to make me a GN convert, let's put it that way.

I had a hard time following along in the GN version of Outlander as told from Jamie's (and Murtagh's, among others) point of view. The artwork was lovely, but I could NOT keep the men's faces straight. They all looked nearly identical to me, and I had to rely on the skimpy dialogue to follow the story. Thank God I'd already read the real novels!

While I'm on the subject of the artwork, what is up with the artist's inability to keep Claire clothed?! I know Claire had a very curvy figure and all, but seriously, no matter what the outfit or context, she always had to be falling out of her flimsy bodices?! WAY too much cleavage to be believable. Capt. Randall's assumption that Claire was a prostitute became utterly logical and rational. She's drawn to look like a blowsy barmaid, for crying out loud!

I'm not certain who the target audience is for this GN version. Perhaps Diana Gabaldon wants to whet GN fans' appetites and get them to read the original series? The nature of this format is such that at least 85% of the story is missing, along with 98% of the character development and back story. It's like reading an abstract for a doctoral thesis. *sigh* In this case a picture really is NOT worth 1000 words. Ah well, I tried. And I stuck it out for the whole thing, just to be sure.

For readers' advisory: story doorway...or people with short attention spans?



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American Born Chinese

American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang

My review

rating: 3 of 5 stars

I did it! I finally read an entire graphic novel! And I'm still alive to tell about it. :)

My friend's 12-year-old daughter recommended it to me, so I figured it had to be pretty good. She knows the whole manga thing confuses me, so she picked a GN that was more like a comic strip with varying sizes of panels--easy enough for me to follow.

This book has three storylines that trade off, and I couldn't figure out whether there was supposed to be one unifying story until almost the very end, but it wasn't hard to track each thread, even when I couldn't see how they would connect. 1) A tale of the Chinese Monkey King, 2) a tale of a lone Chinese American boy making friends with a Chinese boy, and 2) a tale of an American teenager who is embarrassed by his uber-stereotypical Chinese cousin coming to visit. I enjoyed the humor of each, and I was surprised to see a slight religious theme subtly interwoven into the whole--a blend of Eastern and Western.

I also appreciated how fast it was to read. Only 1 1/2 lunch hours required!

Overall, I'd say it's a great GN for teenagers. There are some raging teenage hormones in the story, so I probably wouldn't recommend it to all elementary school kids. And I think I'd actually give it 3 1/2 stars. Were I a big GN fan in general, it would probably get 4 stars. :)


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