Donations Reviews, Round 2

Alice in Wonderland, retold by Martin Powell, illustrated by Daniel Perez 978-1-4342-1585-7
This reads a lot like a Cliff's Notes edition of the book by Lewis Carroll. It would definitely work as something to hand a first- or second-grader. Powell managed to capture some of Lewis's turns of phrase, but like any summary of a larger work, the poetry seems lost. Perez's art is much less eye-searing than Wonderland (which I mentioned in an earlier post), and has echoes of the original art from the Carroll book (especially, I though, in the face of the Duchess). I have no problem putting this on the shelf.

The Emperor's New Clothes, retold by Stephanie True Peters, illustrated by Jeffrey Stewart Timmins 978-1-4342-1595-6
This is a perfectly fine adaptation of the Hans Christian Anderson story. The art is done in mostly sepia tones, which I have no problem with, and the action flows well. The people looked a lot like clowns, however, since everyone had round circles on their cheeks and red noses (which, I suppose, is better than the other interpretation for such an appearance). Even more clown-like are the whitened faces. On the cover, the Emperor is shown in his undergarments (modeling the "new clothes"), and I can clearly see the lines of his white face. Due to the similar faces, I had a hard time distinguishing one character from another at a few points.

The Incredible Rockhead by Scott Nickel and C.S. Jennings 978-1-4342-1591-8
I enjoyed this one a lot more than the Zinc Alloy book. From front cover to back, the book is designed to mimic a traditional newsstand comic book, with an issue number on the front and a faux ad on the back. It's still a pretty simple origin story, but it ends with the words "to be continued" which means it could be expanded to a more complex plot. (As I've said before, you don't need a simple plot just because the vocabulary has to be simple.) I even enjoyed the way the vocabulary page and discussion questions were formatted to resemble even more mock-ads. This is something I'll consider getting more of (assuming I have a budget to spend in 2010).

Princess Candy: Sugar Hero by Michael Dahl, illustrated by Jeff Crowther 978-1-4342-1587-1
A superhero book for the girl crowd, since I don't know a single reluctant reader boy who'd pick up a book with "Princess" and a pink-haired girl on the cover. It's another origin book with minimal plot (pain-in-the-rear star student turns out to be cheater). The main character, Halo Nightly, has a non-traditional family structure (she lives with her grandmother, who drives a taxi for a living) which is actually a nice change from the norm. There is no mention of what happened to her parents, but Halo's mysteriously missing Aunt Pandora is the start of the super powers. Another one I'd consider more of.