The Prince and the Dressmaker

By Jen Wang: also one of the Middle School graphics, but a little bigger and more substantial content wise, for me at least, than some of the others.  I recommend this one for the age group.  It has a lot of sequences with no words just images that really tell a good story.  The twist is that the Prince likes to wear girls' fancy dresses, and goes out in public with the dressmaker, who of course knows his secret.  He faces his parents who are trying to set up a princess for him to marry, and finally he comes out, although his sexual preferences end up being less obvious than at first, making the story even more interesting.

by Jason Shiga

       


Jason Shiga is a talented story teller and visual artist.  I ordered Meanwhile because it was on someone's Middle School 'best of' list for graphics.  It is super creative and interesting from a stylistic point of view, -just the way the book is put together is very nice, a great tactile experience. It is a choose your own adventure type, but you must pay attention to the story or you may get lost in the different lines of the plot.  Its good.

Demon is very very different!  It is a book which appeals to the teenage boy in some of us.  I was repulsed and fascinated, and I also laughed a lot.  I knew I could never put it out on the school library bookshelf, so I sent it back to Amazon.  The premise is that a man tries to commit suicide, but keeps waking up in someone else's body, until he realizes that he is a demon. It is a series and I really have this (guilty pleasure) desire to read more, but its too dark and dirty for me to have the book in my hands because I fear what others may think of me.  How's that for an endorsement to pique your curiosity?

Bookhunter is very cool if you are a librarian, but would probably be far less interesting if you are a civilian.  Shiga either has some background in library work, or did a lot of nerd research to get this right.  He uses terms such as Tattle Tape, which is great if you are on the inside but meaningless if not.  Is funny for me because it is a somewhat frivolous detective story about recovering a stolen rare book, with guns and cops.

Wolf by Wolf

Wolf by wolf, by Ryan Graudin: I hated the writing style of the one, but really liked the premise; the Nazis have won the war, -so what does the world look like now?  Bad, as you may have guessed.  The protagonist in this YA book is Yael and she is a Jew who was experimented on in a death camp.  The Dr. injected her with so many chemicals that she became a shape shifter and now covertly poses as other females to fight for the resistance.  The writing style is that new obnoxious. Way of using no. Sentences in order to add. Emphasis.  Please stop. Write a fang sentence so I don't puke. It works better.



"The year is 1956, and the Axis powers of the Third Reich and Imperial Japan rule. To commemorate their Great Victory, they host the Axis Tour: an annual motorcycle race across their combined continents. The prize? An audience with the highly reclusive Adolf Hitler at the Victor's ball in Tokyo."

Marie Lu: Warcross

I read Lu's trilogy "Legends" and liked it.  This book is better.  Warcross is a well thought out adventure story about a girl on the outs of society, trying to get by as a bounty hunter.  She is a hacker, and gets a job hunting within the Warcross game, working for the super rich most famous guy who invented the game.  Everyone on earth plays this game Warcross, they even have a world championship.


Emika, the star, is a well developed character.  Lu does a great job with the technology and even romance!


Warcross is my new favourite mainly because of the action, oh, and also a good twist at the end, so there is sure to be a sequel.

Empire of the Sun, JG Ballard

Since seeing the film of the same name starring and introducing Christian Bale, I have been interested in this story.  I read it this summer, after realizing that I have it in our school library.

It is the story of a boy in Shanghai, as the war starts and the Japanese invade.  He is separated from his parents and ends up in a camp nearby.  It is hard to read because it is frank and realistic.  Jim is a great character, strong and resilient.  It must be the story of the author, as there are so many details that only one who has lived that particular experience could re-tell so well.  I liked it a lot, but at times wanted the war to end so that Jim could get back to his parents and to a life worth living.  Jim loved the war though, and all the weird things that happened, but the starvation and violence takes it toll on him as it does the reader.

Chew, by John Layman, Rob Guillory

Chew is fantastically weird, and great.  There is also a board game.  Tony Chu is a cop with a special power, that is he can sense and feel everything that has happened to any food.  For instance if he eats a piece of kale, he knows how it grew and was cooked, -its life story.  As a cop, this works well because he just has to taste a body part or bit of blood of the victims he finds, and he can solve the case.  Gross!  But great and darkly funny.

Mouse Guard

Mouse Guard by David Petersen is a beautifully and intricately illustrated comic for young people, simple old European themes of heroism and chivalry make it fun.