New Books! (Grown-Ups Are Dumb, Sonic, Binky, Robin Hood, Little Mouse)

I had to do the ordering from our review lists for October, and got several graphic novels as a result:

Grown-Ups Are Dumb (No Offense) by Alexa Kitchen 978-142311331-7
She's billed as the world's youngest cartoonist. It's a cute book, although paperback. I don't get a lot of the humor, but this is by a kid for kids so I hope it goes well.

Sonic Select: Book One, various authors compiled by Archie Comics 978-1-879794-29-0
I got this one to add to the various Sonic titles requested. It's all old stuff from the 80s. This art looks more "cleaned up" than other volumes, in that it doesn't look like it was scanned straight out of the comic itself, but re-colored for this book.

Binky, the Space Cat by Ashley Spires 978-1-55453-309-1
I love this. The text, though minimal, is very matter-of-fact that Binky can, in fact, be training in secret to fight aliens (aka, household bugs) and fly off into space. There is litter-box humor, but nothing too gross (what do you expect? He's a cat.)

Outlaw: The Legend of Robin Hood by Tony Lee 978-076364399-7
This is definitely for older kids. People die, and one character has his eyes put out. The art is very dark. I almost gave it to the Teen Librarian for her collection. However, the actual gore is kept to a minimum (the missing eyes, for example, are more dark shadows than gaping sockets), and I feel a need for good Robin Hood retellings in our section of the library.

Little Mouse Gets Ready by Jeff Smith 978-1-935179-01-6
In direct contrast to Outlaw, this is a short, sweet book that could easily slide into the picture book section and not be noticed. It's published by the same company that produced Luke on the Loose (which went into our collection before I started this blog). The art is brown backgrounds with lots of color for Little Mouse's clothes, and the story is very easy to follow. Like I said, cute.

Review: The Weasel Patrol

The Weasel Patrol by Ken Macklin and Lela Dowling (987-0-9790750-8-7)

This just in: The Weasel Patrol is on the loose in space. This is great black and white slapstick. The motto of the Patrol is "Protect. Serve. Run Away." Leroy and his fellow weasels do so with fine form, catching the bad guys every time. (They even have their priorities straight: rescuing the Cheezies is more important than contraband, after all.) When reading this with my tongue planted firmly in my cheek, I was trying hard not to laugh and disturb my co-workers. As I said, this is slapstick, so no one gets hurt worse than the Coyote ever did to the Roadrunner. The only problem kids might have is the challenge of the vocabulary, but hey, that's what the dictionary is for.

Review: The Storm in the Barn

The Storm in the Barn by Matt Phelan (978-07636-3618-0)

This was definitely worth the wait. I'm glad I didn't try to lump it in with the other three books yesterday. I still read it quickly, but that's only because there was so little text. Most of the story is conveyed through the art, with a careful use of color. Browns and tans dominate, appropriate for a story set during the Dust Bowl, but there are careful spots of soft greens and blues, and, at one memorable spot, the red of blood.

Jack Clark's older sister cannot leave her bed, the dust is so bad. He's too young to do anything to help his father fix the car--all that is keeping them on the farm. There are no chores except occasionally watching his younger sister for his mother. He's bullied by boys in town. Then, he starts seeing things through the cracks in the Talbot barn. I won't say what Jack sees, because that is the crux of the story, but how he deals with it makes Jack one of the Jacks of fairy tale stuff--just like the stories he hears from the storekeeper and his sister's Oz books. I am so glad I got this book for my library (and very happy that Candlewick took the effort to give it a good binding and excellent quality paper).

Quick Mentions: New Books, Continuing Series

Just a quick post:

Got some new stuff last week that I have to give to the processing people: A Little Snow Fairy Sugar 3( 978-1-4139-03546), which is the last volume in the set; The Big Adventures of Majoko 2 (978-1-897376-82-9); The Storm in the Barn by Matthew Phelan (978-0-7636-3618-0); and The Lapis Lazuli Crown 2 (978-1-4012-2121-8), also the last of the series.

I got Sugar to complete the set--I don't really have time or interest in reading it for review. I enjoyed the first Majoko, which is why I got the second. (I really should have my daughter read them.) I'll review Storm another time--it's supposed to be good, so I want to give it enough time to read and absorb properly. Lapis Lazuli was as good as I hoped, though the story felt a little rushed. There's a bit more political intrigue in this issue, but again, no annoying chibi or drawn-out battle scenes. Yay!

Hardy Boys: Undercover Brothers #18

Got the lastest BWI shipment in yesterday, and for fun set aside D.A.N.G.E.R. Spells the Hangman (Hardy Boys: Undercover Brother #18 from Papercutz, 978-1-59707-191-1). I was reading it just after reading The 3-2-3 Detective Agency (see previous post), so I was in a mystery mindset.

I can't say it's much better than 3-2-3, unfortunately. I like the art better, though I think 3-2-3 has the advantage of being more attractive for younger readers. All the Hardy Boys are done in a manga style (down to even some funny faces to depict emotions at times). The mystery was more life-threatening (someone is trying to kill spelling bee contestants, not just kidnap). In fact, the opening "teaser" is about preventing the assassination of a young boy at a paintball range. But still, seriously, spelling bee contestants? The denouement read more like a Scooby-D00 cartoon than something written for tweens/teens. Good thing I'm purchasing for elementary/middle school readers then.

Why am I buying these again? Oh yeah, steady series that circulates anyway. Well, I hope the readers are at least looking at other things on the shelf.

Review: The 3-2-3 Detective Agency

The 3-2-3 Detective Agency in the Disappearance of Dave Warthog by Fiona Robinson 978-0-8109-8489-9

I'm afraid I don't have much to say. This book has been reviewed and summarized extensive elsewhere--part of why I purchased it. My reaction to this is tepid. It's cute, and I'm sure younger readers will love it. The mystery seems weak to me, however. The art is very colorful, and almost too busy (but I could still follow the action). It's a nice hardcover binding (I'm a sucker for hardcover--they tend to hold up in the library better). I'll just have to see how the circulation holds up after a year or two on the shelf.

Review: The Lapis Lazuli Crown

The Lapis Lazuli Crown 1 by Natsuna Kawase, 978-1-4012-2120-1
What do you know, there is shojo (girl manga) I can stand to read! This is the story of the middle daughter of an impoverished noble family who is, well, freakishly strong, a situation she is not happy with. In addition, her older sister is a genius sorceress, and her younger sister look to be the same, while Miel has trouble controlling the most basic spells. One day she literally runs into Prince Radian, who is going about town undercover after he gave his best friend/retainer the slip. She doesn't know who he is at first, and they get to know each other when she gives him a "tour" of the city. After his deception is revealed, he gifts her with a charm made from lapis lazuli, the royal stone, and tells her he'll wait for the day she can use the stone to cast spells (you can't work at the palace unless you can use lapis lazuli, which is a fragile stone). This actually motivates her to study magic harder, even transferring to a magic-oriented high school. I'm definitely hoping there are more issues forthcoming. I even enjoyed the secondary story, about a cat burglar saving his reputation by helping a girl targeted by his copycat (even though it took up about a third of the book).

I think what I like most was the lack of over-emoting, chibi characters. There were no cutesy talking pets, no overload of Japanese-style emotion faces (aside from Miel falling to her knees when overwhelmed a few too many times). There weren't any knock-down-drag-out duels that last for 50 pages (more a problem with shonen, I know). The magic system in the story is fairly straightforward, and the world seems fairly well-built (considering I only saw the cityscape, I could be wrong). The characters were well-drawn, and I could tell them apart, even in black-and-white. I could follow the flow of the action. There's supposed to be a concluding volume coming out this month--I'll be looking for it.