Picturebooks

28 Days Later: The Aftermath

From Wiki: The book bridges the gap between the original film and its sequel, 28 Weeks Later. It explores four interconnecting stories and delves deeper into the development of the Rage virus, the battle for survival that ensued once it was unleashed in London, and what it finally took to restore order in the ravaged city.

A quick read but doesn't really tell a reader anything they didn't already imagine from watching the first movie.

By Hannah Berry

From Publishers Weekly:

Berry's impressive graphic novel debut—published to much praise last year in Great Britain—mixes classic noir, a timeless story of love and loss and a shot of black humor with gloomy 1940s London as the perfect backdrop. PI Fernández Britten is known as the Heartbreaker: he's the one who follows cheating spouses and delivers news that ruins marriages. When glamorous Charlotte Maughton, the daughter of children's publishing magnate Maurice Maughton, hires him to look into the alleged suicide of her fiancé, Berni Kudos, Britten glumly takes the case. With his trusty sidekick, Stewart Brülightly—who just happens to be a teabag—Britten begins sniffing around Kudos's job at Maughton Publishing, keeping in mind Charlotte's suspicion that her fiancé's death could be tied to a blackmailing scheme aimed at her powerful father....(Apr.)

I loved everything about this book--but I recommend reading this on a *very* sunny day to combat the very effective writing and art. lol/smh

Animal Crackers:

From Booklist

It’s easy to see the seeds of Yang’s aesthetic—the personification of heavy personal trauma, leavened by persistent goofiness—in this collection of two of his earliest works. Indeed, even the clean lines and uncluttered composition of his visual style seem already honed, if not perfected. In the first story, a kinda-bully befriends a nerd whose hatred of his awful father has anthropomorphized into huge, murderous animal crackers. In the second, a girl falls for a dream-spirit named Saint Danger, who plans to save humanity from an alien invasion by deciding who is unfit enough for survival. The two stories share a few tangential relationships, cast of characters, and a secret society of microbots who store data up people’s nostrils. The power of Yang’s work comes from his ability to juggle a lot of ideas while working on several different levels all at once. When it clicks, it’s sublime; when it doesn’t quite, like here, it’s still pretty thought-provoking. In an especially fine bonus, Yang recounts his journey from child comics enthusiast to self-published cartoonist and details the finer points of his artistic process. Grades 8-12. --Ian Chipman

**Ignore the review on Amazon.com. The cultural disconnect in that review is quite strong. lol/smh Yang's book creates something really beautiful out of painful (and embarrassing) experiences through the friendships he depicts in the book. Also--the girl in the book shows a female lead 'mainstream' audiences don't always see in the big or small screen. Definitely worth reserving at the library or just buying outright.**

I just finished reading Vampire Loves by Joann Sfar who also wrote the fantastic The Rabbi's Cat.

From Publishers Weekly

Ferdinand is a vampire who lives in Lithuania, wears three-piece suits and receives regular visits from an adoptive "grandmother" witch who looks after his Siamese cat when he's off on trips to Paris. But none of this is any protection against the more mundane realities of being a newly single guy stuck forever in that period of new adulthood when hormones meet emotions and confusion results.

The paperback is fairly inexpensive and worth the read if you have a thing for neurotic vampires. lol

The Bold Outlines of a Plot

If the mood on the plane that crashed into the side of the Pentagon, American Airlines Flight 77, could have been a color, it would have been a soft, translucent tan, according to a comic book about the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Yes, that's right, a comic about the attacks is set for publication late next month.

Industry veterans Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón have collaborated to produce "The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation," which is being published by Hill and Wang, the nonfiction imprint of Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

The book condenses the nearly 600-page federal report released by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States to fewer than 150 pages, and the creators say they hope their book will help attract young readers and others who might be overwhelmed by the original document. With sans-serif captions, artist renderings, charts and sound-describing words such as "Whooom!" and "R-rrumble," the adaptation recounts the attacks with parallel timelines of the four hijacked planes.

But can a topic as massive and sobering as Sept. 11 be dealt with effectively in the pages of a comic book?( Collapse )

Source: Washington Post

Reviewed by Jim McMullan

The magic in Van Allsburg's new book Probuditi! has been domesticated. Instead of supernatural powers sending rhinos charging through the living room, as in Jumanji, or spacemen falling through the ceiling, as in Zathura, Calvin, the protagonist of Probuditi!, employs a simple magician's trick to set the story in motion.Calvin and his buddy Rodney attend a performance by Lomax the Magnificent where the magician, by means of a rotating spiral disc, hypnotizes a woman and convinces her that she is a chicken. At the end of the show, Lomax says, "Probuditi!" and the woman snaps out of her trance. ( Collapse )

****What's really fascinating about this book? I believe this is the first time van Allsburg has had a child of color as the main character. I'm perplexed but not really surprised that the reviewer has omitted the fact that Trudy and Calvin are black American children. Had a chance to page through it, but I'll have to go back and really look it over before I can give my own opinion.****

A Guide for Evaluating Children's Books for Anti-Indian Bias.
1996, b/w illustrations.

Reproduced from Through Indian Eyes: The Native Experience in Books for Children, the goal of this 30-page book is to make it easier for parents, students, teachers or librarians to choose undistorted books about the lives and histories of indigenous peoples.

Slapin, Beverly, Doris Seale (Santee/Cree), and Rosemary Gonzales (Ojibwe),

About Oyate Publications:

Oyate is a Native organization working to see that our lives and histories are portrayed honestly, and so that all people will know our stories belong to us. For Native children, it is as important as it has ever been for them to know who they are and what they come from. It is a matter of survival. For all children, it is time to learn the truth of history. Only in this way will they come to have the understanding and respect for each other that now, more than ever, will be necessary for life to continue.

Our work includes evaluation of texts, resource materials and fiction by and about Native peoples; conducting of teacher workshops, in which participants learn to evaluate children's material for anti-Indian biases; administration of a small resource center and library; and distribution of children's, young adult, and teacher books and materials, with an emphasis on writing and illustration by Native people.

A close up of a truly immense and dedicated African American artist. Born in Brooklyn, NY, Tom Feelings began drawing the world that was close to him...from Brownsville, Brooklyn to Guyana, South America...from a colorful depiction of the Brooklyn Bridge to his monumental book on slavery 'The Middle Passage,' Tom Feelings captured the essence of the Black experience.

Directed and Produced by Jimmie Mannas
Documentary Short
28 minutes

Trailer

There's a glimpse of his art and process on The Middle Passage in this clip.

I tend to think of Paul Goble's work and how it's used to perpetuate this idea of a Vanishing 'Breed'

Here's a good literature review on this subject

The Three Questions



Nikolai is a boy who believes that if he can find the answers to his three questions, he will always know how to be a good person. His friends--a heron, a monkey, and a dog--try to help, but to no avail, so he asks Leo, the wise old turtle. "When is the best time to do things? Who is the most important one? What is the right thing to do?" Leo doesn't answer directly, but by the end of Nikolai's visit, the boy has discovered the answers himself.

Award-winning illustrator Jon J Muth's lovely watercolors are the most appealing aspect of this book about compassion and living in the moment. The simple Zen-based profundity of the boy's philosophical exploration may escape young readers, but they will enjoy the tale of a child who, in doing good deeds (for a panda and her baby, no less!), finds inner peace. Muth based his story on a short story of the same title by Leo Tolstoy. (Ages 5 to 9) --Emilie Coulter

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