Pink and Say: Be Ready to Learn Some Important Life Lessons From This Story Folks

A Review By: Amelia

History is a big seller for me. I love learning about it anyway I can: movies, television, documentaries, books. After recently finishing up Gone With the Wind I’ve become pretty interested in the American Civil War so I thought I’d check out some other media about it. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d find a children’s picture book about it–nor as heavy and foreboding a children’s picture book as Pink and Say.

This story, Pink and Say, is about a young black soldier who rescues a young white soldier who has been left for dead. He carries him home to his mother in Georgia who helps nurse him back to health. The two soldiers strike up an unlikely friendship but, unfortunately, it ends in tragedy.

Patricia Barber Polacco is the author and illustrator of Pink and Say along with many, many other picture books for children. Polacco struggled in school as she had dyslexia and was unable to read until she was fourteen. She found relief by expressing herself through art until a school teacher recognized that she couldn’t read and helped her overcome it (if you’re interested in that story, her book Thank You, Mr. Falker is her retelling and tribute to the teacher who helped her).

As the title of the book suggests, the main characters of this piece are Pink and Say. Pink is the black soldier, and Say the white soldier, but they’re both fifteen and they’re both fighting for the Union so they become kin. Their friendship is very touching and well developed. Polacco does an amazing job of showing how friendship can cross colour lines. She deals with such character traits as compassion and selflessness with ease and it’s all very natural. Like Say being scared of going back to the fighting. You don’t see him as a coward, you see him for the fifteen year old boy that he is. I especially like Pink and how he admitted he was scared to fight too, but that he had too because it was his fight. His angry and pride and courage are shown all at once in just that one section of the story and that’s something that a lot of author’s can do so naturally.

All that about characters being said, this is a very heavily themed book, but with a topic like the Civil

War there was no way it wasn’t going to be! It’s a book that teaches children about the injustices faced by non-white people in history and the cruelty of war. It’s a heavy message (not intended for the age group the publisher is trying to peddle it to, just so you know) but it’s supposed to be heavy: maybe even a little bit shocking. I think its heaviness gives it gravitas and more staying power within the reader’s mind, which makes it a great choice for a social studies unit in school, but maybe a poor choice for a bedtime tale.

The art style of Pink and Say is rough, kind of spur-of-the-moment (if you know what I mean). The lines aren’t all perfect, the proportions are strange, and the colouring looks like it could have been done by a kid with markers in some spots, but that all adds to the experience. The story is emotional so it’s only fitting that the artwork also be emotional; that it invokes a kind of stirring in you of textures and grit and pain. It’s all quite exquisite when looking at it as a whole package of story and art.

There are few picture books written about the Civil War, fewer still based on such emotionally charged true stories. Although this book had a tragic ending, the story is a poignant tribute to an interracial friendship that developed during a time when such a thing was severely punishable. While younger students may not fully understand or appreciate the story and/or its underlying themes of racism and war, the basic idea of friendship will resonate with all readers.

My final thoughts on Pink and Say are that it is incredibly heart-wrenching but it’s also incredibly important in the realm of children’s literature and history itself. It’s a true story kept alive by the gorgeous artwork and skilful language of Patricia Barber Polacco. It’s a tale that keeps being told to make people realize just how inhumane we are to our fellow man and to maybe persuade us–teach us–to take a different approach, to be respectful, to lend a helping hand and, in that, it readily succeeds.

The Good Man of Nanking: The Diary of a Good Nazi

A Review By: Amelia

I’ve had a grim fascination with World War Two since I was a child thanks to my grandfather who told me countless war stories. I thought I knew everything there was to know about the war into a few years ago when I read a historical fiction novel called The Devil of Nanking (which I have also reviewed for this blog). It had details about a part of the war that I had no idea existed: the Asian invasions and conflict that Japan roused in China. Since discovering this facts, I’ve had an even grimer fascination with the rape of Nanking and have read all the material I could find on the topic. That is how I came into possession of the book The Good Man of Nanking.

The Good Man of Nanking is a diary that documents one of World War Two’s most horrific incidents of genocide, one which the Japanese have steadfastly refused to acknowledge. In November 1937, as Japanese troops overran the Chinese capital of Nanking and began a campaign of torture, rape, and murder against its citizens, one man put himself at risk and in order to save the lives of 200,000 poor Chinese.

John Rabe was a German businessman and member of the Nazi party who is best known for his efforts to stop the atrocities of the Japanese army during the Nanking Occupation and his work to protect and help the Chinese civilians during the event. The Nanking Safety Zone, which he helped to establish, sheltered approximately 200,000 Chinese people from slaughter during the massacre. He officially represented Germany and acted as senior chief of the European–American establishment that remained in Nanking when the city fell to the Japanese troops. He kept an extensive account in the form of a diary documenting the fall and subsequent rape of Nanking. His diary includes the years leading up to and during the Rape of Nanking and after he left China and returned to Germany.

Rabe’s record of this often forgotten World War Two massacre is an awe-inspiring tale of one man’s generosity and bravery in the face of appalling, unnecessary human brutality. Rabe’s thoughts convey not only jarring information that few people knew about, but also his emotions. This diary is that of a man who was pushed to his breaking point but just kept going because he knew if he didn’t, more people would have been slaughtered. Rabe was a Nazi but much against what we know Nazis to be. He was a good man and without him, what happened in Nanking could have been much worse for much longer.

My final thoughts on The Good Man of Nanking are that it’s an interesting book with a very niche topic. It’s certainly not something a casual nonfiction reader could pick up and fall into, but a history buff might find many new (if mostly disturbing) facts. 

Sherlock Holmes A Study in Scarlet: A Study in How Many Things Can Be Turned Into a Graphic Novel!

A Review By: Amelia

Sherlock Holmes is a literary figure that will never stop sparking people’s imaginations. In my lifetime alone I’ve seen his period pieces (Guy Ritchie movies), his modern pieces (the BBC Cumberbatch series), and his ultra-modern pieces (the Sherlock Holmes in the 22^nd Century cartoon). He’s impossible to escape! So I thought why not read his graphic novels (which I just discovered recently)? I mean, honestly, I’m a little surprised he didn’t get graphic novel adaptations sooner but that’s beside the point.

In the debut of literature’s most famous sleuth, a dead man is discovered in a bloodstained room in Brixton. The only clues are a wedding ring, a gold watch, a pocket edition of Boccaccio's Decameron, and a word scrawled in blood on the wall. With this investigation begins the partnership of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. Their search for the murderer uncovers a story of love and revenge and, out of the literature fiction, heralds a franchise of detective mysteries starring the formidable Holmes that are still being enjoyed nowadays.

The original author of A Study in Scarlet is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, but we all already know that. The adaptors of the graphic novel are Ian Edginton, a British comic book writer known for his steampunk/alternate history fiction pieces, and Ian Culbard who is a designer, inker, colourist, and letterer for comics and is a fan of H.P. Lovecraft and especially Arthur Conan Doyle, so the perfect guy for the job!

The plot of A Study in Scarlet follows the original novel closely with a bloody and strange homicide, Holmes and Watson meeting for the first time, and murderous Mormons. The thing I liked the most about A Study in Scarlet however was the art. I’m not usually a big mystery fan so I’ve always stayed away from Sherlock Holmes for the most part. The exception being the movies with Jude Law as Dr. Watson, but I digress! The art style of the piece was blocky and angular and it was just really appealing to me. I especially loved the smug half-smile that was always on Holmes’ face! It was a very simple style overall, but it fit the story and mood nicely.

My final thoughts on A Study in Scarlet the Graphic Novel are that there’s nothing much to say about it besides it’s quite good. It really worked well as a graphic novel. The art style is eye-drawing without being overbearing and the story compelling but cut back enough to make it a quick and snappy read. It doesn’t add anything new to the Sherlock Holmes mythos but it’s a good standalone for anyone interested in Holmes’ mysteries but maybe not the classical prose! Trust me, you’ll like this graphic novel: it’s elementary my dear reader... I’ sorry, I couldn’t resist!

The Looking Glass Wars: Another Gritty, Dark Fairy Tale Retelling

A Review By: Amelia

Fairy tale retellings have become a mainstay in the modern world of literature. You get to take an established universe and work in a new story from someone’s perspective that you haven’t seen before and, as an avid writer of fanfiction, it’s a section of fiction that I’m fond of. Most of it ends up being something dark and gritty and The Looking Glass Wars fits in that category to a tee.

When Alyss Heart, heir to the Wonderland throne, must flee Wonderland to escape her murderous aunt Redd, she finds herself lost and alone in Victorian London. Her identity is stripped from her and she becomes a normal girl of the time period while Redd is left unopposed to rule with an iron fist. Fortunately, Alyss is gone, but not forgotten. Her Royal Bodyguard Hatter Madigan goes searching through every corner of our world to find the lost princess and return her to Wonderland so she may eventually battle Redd for her rightful place as the Queen of Hearts.

And so goes the tale of The Looking Glass Wars. A tale that pushes aside Disney’s notion of a curious little blonde girl and leads us on a journey of epic portions in the war for Imagination! The author of this ambitious reimagining of Lewis Carroll’s fantastic tale is Frank Beddor. In addition to being an author he’s also a champion freestyle skier, a film producer, a stuntman, actor, and CEO of Automatic Pictures Production Co. His best known works are There’s Something About Mary and Wicked as a producer, and writing the retelling of Alice in Wonderland with The Looking Glass Wars series.

Wonderland, in this retelling, is a vast kingdom that’s sort of a mirrored version of the Earth we know and love. If our world is one of science, theirs is one of magic (aka imagination in this story). There’s huge deserts and unimaginably complex cities. To travel quickly about Wonderland one takes a mirror expressway; and to travel to our world one can jump into the pool of tears and wind up somewhere on Earth by means of a puddle. After Redd takes over, Wonderland becomes a sinister place with arenas built for Jabberwocky blood sport and deadly machines skulk through the dark alleys of abandoned glass apartments. The magical forests and quaint (if not a bit strange) villages and cottages are replaced with a glittering metropolis: more like that of science-fiction than fantasy, but familiar just the same. It’s a pretty amazing world actually, despite Beddor not quite describing it as much as I would have liked. It’s definitely an interesting take on the Wonderland we all know.

Just as interesting as the take on Wonderland as a landscape is the take on all the characters. The book is set up in such a way that the Alice in Wonderland that we know is a warped version of a little girl’s stories about her kingdom Wonderland. Alice is actually Alyss, the princess and heir of one of the most powerful imaginations in all of Wonderland. The White Rabbit is Alyss’ twitchy tutor Bibwit Harte, and the Mad Hatter is Hatter Madigan, Alyss’ solemn bodyguard with hidden blades in his trademark top hat; and this is just to name a few. Like the landscape of Wonderland, the characters we know have been turned on their heads and an original twist added to them, but once again Beddor’s lack of prose really drags it down as the characters are described as they would be in a screenplay (that is to say with two sentences dedicated to physical description and that’s it) and their dialogue falls flat more often than not. 

Ambitious is the best word to sum up The Looking Glass Wars. It’s ambitious in the scope of the story and the originality but in how it was executed it falls short. Beddor might know what needs to be done with a screenplay but a novel is another organism entirely. Unfortunately, Beddor just doesn’t have the chops for novel writing and (in the sequels especially) it shows.

My final thoughts on The Looking Glass Wars are that it’s a decent story. It reads like a screenplay and not a novel in some scenes and the sequels it spawned (Seeing Redd and ArchEnemy) read almost play by play like a screenplay but The Looking Glass Wars is a decent read. The characters all had interesting flairs that were inspired by the original tale (or in the story the tale that was based off of Alyss’ observations on her homeland) and the setting was vast in its originality–I’m still curious about it after having read it quite a while ago so it definitely gets points for that. The prose was a tipping point for me however, it just wasn’t up to snuff and too much like a screenplay during action and dialogue sequences. All in all, The Looking Glass Wars gets a two out of five from me: okay but certainly not as far down the rabbit hole as I would have liked!

Every Wrong Turn: A Short Story That Takes All the Right Turns!

A Review By: Amelia

I love Clive Barker. Anyone who frequents this review blog will know that as I’ve reviewed both Books of Blood vol. 1 and Coldheart Canyon. Today’s review is not from Barker himself, but from a short story collection featuring stories based on his classic horror novella The Hellbound Heart, and although Barker did not write any of the stories, it is still a treat to read.

In short, Hellbound Hearts is an anthology that is based on the critically acclaimed novella The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker. It’s a collection of twenty-one stories, all from authors of different walks of fiction, which expand and explore the merciless realm of the demonic Cenobites, of the puzzles that call them forth, and the types of people that would dare summon them.

There were quite a few that caught my attention and held it without pause until I had finished it, but the one that sticks out most prominently after having read all of them, is Every Wrong Turn by Tim Lebbon.

Tim Lebbon is a veteran dark fantasy and horror writer. His short story Reconstructing Amy won the Bram Stoker Award for Short Fiction in 2001, and his novel Dusk won the August Derleth Award in 2007. He’s had a few things appear on the New York Times bestseller list and won a Scribe Award in 2008. All in all, the man knows his way about short story, horror fiction, and the mythos that Barker created with The Hellbound Heart was perfect or Lebbon to work and expand in his own way.

Every Wrong Turn is a story about a man–who remains unnamed–exploring a labyrinth that shows him all the sins he has committed through his lifetime. He sees himself beating and raping his wife Michelle, killing a so-called friend that he thought was a charlatan, abandoning his daughter Jenny, and more. While we see little about the above mentioned characters, we get a good, long look at the unnamed main character. He’s a fiend: rape, murder, child abuse, anger, violence–the list is long. We see his past transgressions and loath him for it. But so does her. He’s remorseful of his actions and becomes more panicked and desperate as he realizes that even though he’s been living with these memories, it’s a horrifying experience to smell and hear them again. He wants to–needs to–be punished for them so that he might have some sort of peace in his life. It’s an interesting angle to work from having your main character seeking redemption for his actions but not have the audience feel sorry for him. Trust me, the guy is a monster and no matter how badly he wants forgiveness, the author sees that he doesn’t get it, from us or himself.

The location of the piece takes place entirely within some sort of ethereal labyrinth, created long ago by a man who then became lost in his creation. The labyrinth holds the pasts of everyone who enters, and as you move further into it, your sins are shown to you: the worse they become the further in your go. The labyrinth is a very interesting place for this story to take place. Is it an alternate dimension? A delusion of a crazy mind? Perhaps a glimpse into the future, or your life flashing before your eyes before you die. It’s never said exactly what it is and it’s up to the reader to decide what they want to believe.

The themes of Every Wrong Turn, like the story it’s based on, involve pain and pleasure interweaving into something greater. The labyrinth is a supposed gateway to hell but scores of people have still tried to make their way through it in search of something they can’t find on Earth. There’s also a theme of memories as the unnamed man has to confront his past, each memory becoming worse and worse as he gets further into the labyrinth. He’s searching for the centre of the maze because he believes it will bring him some kind of peace from his memories, but the story shows us that to leave bad feelings behind, we must first face them head on: whether we like it or not.

My final thoughts on Every Wrong Turn are that Lebbon created one hell of a short story. Strangely, it was not my favourite one within the collection, but it is the one that is staying with me the most. There was just something about the way the unnamed main character is forced to explore his dark memories that… well, disturbed me. There was no puzzle box, no classic Cenobites to speak of, but what the character experienced terrified me more than Cenobites ever have! And I think that because I have no idea why that’s the case–why these memories that someone else and not myself is reliving are capable of disturbing me so much more than demons from a torture dimension… it’s just fascinating. It adds a whole new layer to Barker’s mythos and left me feeling unsettled and anxious, and–in the end–isn’t that what good horror fiction is all about?

The Woman Who Would Be King: The Non-Fiction Biography That Reads Like Fiction

A Review By: Amelia

Ancient Egypt is the most interesting time period in the history of humanity for me. I love reading about the rituals and gods and architecture that was created by them and practiced for thousands of years. I love mummies and curses and dank tombs. I love the salacious details of palace life, including (but not limited to) the family incest that occurred to keep the royal bloodlines pure. I just love it all and that all-encompassing love of ancient Egypt that I hold in my heart is why I chose to read The Woman Who Would Be King: Hatshepsut’s Rise to Power in Ancient Egypt.

So who is Hatshepsut? Well, Hatshepsut was the daughter of a general who usurped Egypt’s throne when the last pharaoh failed to produce any viable off-spring and a mother with ties to the previous dynasty. She was born into a privileged position in the royal household, and she was expected to bear the sons who would legitimize the reign of her father’s family. Her failure to produce a male heir was ultimately the twist of fate that paved the way for her unheard of rule as a cross-dressing king.  At just over twenty, Hatshepsut ascended to the rank of pharaoh in an elaborate coronation ceremony that set the tone for her spectacular reign as co-regent with Thutmose III, the infant king. Hatshepsut was a master strategist, cloaking her political power plays in the veil of piety and sexual reinvention, who helped to re-establish hundreds of trade routes not used for generations, build tremendous monuments to the gods and herself, and show the ancient world that just because she was female didn’t mean she couldn’t successfully rule richest, most powerful nation in the world.

The writer of The Woman Who Would Be King is Dr. Kara Cooney is an Egyptologist and Assistant Professor of Egyptian Art and Architecture at UCLA who has been a part of the archaeological teams that excavated at the artisans’ village of Deir el Medina, Dahshur, and various tombs in Thebes. She’s been the curator of many museum exhibitions, including one all about Tutankhamun, and she’s worked on two Discovery Channel documentary series: Out of Egypt and Egypt’s Lost Queen. She’s a lady with an immense knowledge/passion for ancient Egypt, and really, who can blame her? The ancient Egyptians were pretty great!

Hatshepsut is an amazing historical figure but until recently she’d been nearly completely forgotten by history. Why? Well, the short answer is that she was a woman who ruled during a prosperous time in Egypt’s ancient history and the patriarchal system of governance in the ancient world (and hell, even in today’s world) glazes over such women. History isn’t for women who do the job successfully, it’s for women who destroy or corrupt or just do a terrible job at leading because it’s a way to keep women from power! To only show the lows and no highs allows great female leaders to be swept under the rug! Oh, excuse me, my feminism is showing again (although all this is completely true and it’s not like I try to hide my feminist views... but I digress).

The Woman Who Would Be King shows Hatshepsut’s life in a speculative way of what she might have been doing day to day in her royal life and how she might feel about certain things. It makes the book feel a little more like a novel but the speculation can become a little tiresome as Cooney will lay something at your feet and then say (more or less) ‘or it could be the complete opposite of this’. I understand, she’s covering her tracks as to not disown herself from the community should she displease them, but books like this are about facts and discoveries and theories! Don’t cover your tracks because you’re scared of confrontation–stand proud and explain why you believe what you believe!

My final thoughts on The Woman Who Would Be King: Hatshepsut’s Rise to Power in Ancient Egypt are that it’s a good historical read but I’m biased because I love ancient Egypt/women’s studies, I just want to say that straight away in case you didn’t pick up on any of that before. That being said, this is still a good book (although if you’re not interested in ancient Egypt, the politics of royalty, biographies, non-fiction, etc, then this book isn’t for you in any way). The Woman Who Would Be King is informative and written in such a way as to not just be one stuffy fact after another. It interestingly traces the unconventional life of a female king as she built one of Egypt’s most prolific/richest building periods but was then almost forgotten just a few years after her death. Cooney has shown history at its finest and given Hatshepsut life once more, for (and here comes a history lesson) in ancient Egypt, to speak the dead’s name is too make them live again.

Game of Thrones: It’s a Novel, a Show, and Now It’s... Overkill. Oh, I’m Sorry, I Meant Graphic Novel!

A Review By: Amelia

You’ve read the books. You’ve watched the hit series on HBO. Now acclaimed novelist Daniel Abraham and illustrator Tommy Patterson bring George R. R. Martin’s epic fantasy masterwork A Game of Thrones to majestic new life in the pages of this full-color graphic novel. So goes the opening of every synopsis I could find, and as far as I’m concerned, it’s good enough for me. I mean, we all already know about the plot and characters and the overworld of Westeros and the only thing you really need to know about the graphic novel’s overview is that it follows the books super closely and not the HBO series which deviates from the original books greatly.

The original author of A Song of Ice and Fire series is George R.R. Martin. The adaptors of the novels into comic book form are Daniel Abraham and Tommy Patterson. Abraham is an American sci-fi and fantasy writer whose short stories have appeared in numerous publications and anthologies. He’s been nominated for the Nebula Award and the Hugo Award. He collaborates with George R.R. Martin because they both live in New Mexico! Patterson is... well, a comic artist. That was all I could find on him. That and he worked on Farscape comics as well. That’s it. I guess I’ll leave it at that!

From what I’ve seen so far (which is the first three volumes as yet have more to be published) the graphic novels are sticking very close to the books. Of course they’re not as detailed as the books and some things are cut out or rushed through but I understand that–the novels are huge, other mediums don’t have as much time or space in which to explore it all fully. In regards to the characters and their development, with visuals being the medium in a graphic novel instead of words, an artist/writer should be able to convey all the necessary details through the pictures. However, the art style is such that hardly anything is conveyed through the pictures (in regard to the characters) and it still relays heavily on large chunks of text ripped straight from the novel. It’s kind of a cheap stunt if you ask me. The characters come off as stinted in their development and blank and vapid. It’s such a shame considering how amazing Martin made his characters in the books!

Now, to speak more on the art style of Game of Thrones it is a realistic one

(it’s not blocky or angular) and it’s drawn to make the characters look like people in a real landscape. However, I’ve found the bodies and faces to be off. The women are drawn to be sexy and appealing without certain things being taken into account. Take Catelyn Stark as an example. She’s given birth to five children, one of which is fourteen years old, and she’s drawn with her breasts big and firm (so not happening after breast feeding five children) and her face is smooth and wrinkle free like that of a teenager when she’s surely approaching middle age if not already there. It’s all done to make her more appealing to look at instead of staying true to the character that’s written about in the books. It’s standard practice in the comic book but it’ll take you right out of the story and get you thinking about how it wasn’t right she (and mostly every other character) is drawn that way! The facial expressions are also really very poor as every character only ever makes one of two faces: smiling or frowning. There’s no in between. And none of this even covers the colouring which is too bright for my liking. It’s fine for the warmer climates to be bright, but why is Winterfell so shiny? It just doesn’t fit.

The main complaint that I (and most other people on the internet according to what I read) have about Game of Thrones the Graphic Novel are that it’s not adding anything to the mythology of A Song of Fire and Ice. It’s just uninspired art with text tugged straight from the novels slapped on top of it. Although I should point out that I’m fine with the text straight from the novels, overall, it’s the art style kills this adaption for me. It doesn’t work around the story with its bright colours and cutesie faces!

My final thoughts on Game of Thrones the Graphic Novel are to avoid it unless you are George R.R. Martin’s biggest fan in all the universe. The graphic novels can stand alone away from the HBO show and the novels, but they are by far the weakest adaption of Martin’s massive fantasy epic.

I Drink For A Reason: Maybe It Would Have Been Funnier Drunk…

A Review By: Amelia

In the past few years there have been a lot of stand-up comedians that have written books. Some are absolutely wonderful like (in my opinion) Tina Fey’s Bossypants. Some are less than wonderful like (in my opinion) I Am America by Stephen Colbert. I find that it really depends on the person writing and if they know how to make their usual material work as prose instead of orally delivered. Some do it wonderfully, others don’t. Personally I found that David Cross straddled the line throughout his debut novel.

I Drink For A Reason, as I mentioned above, is written by David Cross. Cross is an actor/stand up comic, his most notable role probably being the never-nude Tobias Funkë from the fabulous television show Arrested Development. As a comic he’s sharp tongued and ever ready to rant and rave about really anything that comes to his mind–including, but not limited too, Jim Belushi ("The Belush"), Fox television network executives, and Bill O'Reilly (all topics covered in his book). I Drink For A Reason is his book debut.

I Drink For A Reason is a series of essays written about everything and nothing all at once. Much like his stand-up, the book is written like a long and nimble rant that details anything from things from his life, solid political commentary, as well as just random thoughts that pop into his head. The funniest part about the whole book (at least by my opinion) is the series of pictures he includes that have nothing to do with him. They're just random pictures of other people and he adds a comment at the bottom of them about what time in his life it was. It was the only part I was constantly laughing at.

I Drink For A Reason is a decent stand-up comic-to-author debut but it’s not quite good enough to stand on its own. If you’ve ever seen David Cross do stand-up, you know when the man is joking. In the book however, you don’t have the visual/vocal cue of when he’s joking and he comes off a lot more serious than he means to be during some parts.

My final thoughts on I Drink For A Reason are that it’s hit and miss: it’s written as a series of essays, so at least hit and miss is on par with other books like this. I found myself laughing at some bits, but bored during most of the other bits. Honestly, it would be better delivered as a stand-up routine, and I do believe that it has been in the past which is probably why it feels a little recycled. All in all, worth it if you adore David Cross; not worth it if you’re just looking for a funny book.

Tsunami!: Lessons and Entertainment All Wrapped Into One!

A Review By: Amelia

When the last major tsunami hit I remember it was big news with the kids I work with. They were just old enough to realize that it was a very serious thing and a very scary thing. Their bedtime routine became a nightmare scene of trying to calm them enough that they’d go to sleep but it was easier said then done. They were old enough to be scared of this natural disaster but not old enough to realize that there wasn’t a giant tidal wave headed for the suburbs of Toronto at that very moment! Did they want to hear facts and statistics about tsunamis? They couldn’t even be bothered to look at the spot on the map that I was pointing to showing where Toronto is compared to the ocean? I figured the only way I’d ever get them to learn anything about them was to haul them to the library and find a picture book. And a picture book, appropriately titled Tsunami!, I found!

Tsunami! is about Ojiisan, the oldest and wealthiest man in a seaside Japanese village. One day, during the rice ceremony, Ojiisan feels something coming that he can’t describe. When he sees the ocean running away from the shore he knows for sure what’s coming: a tsunami! But the villagers below can’t see the danger and Ojiisan has to decide to risk his wealth or risk lives! Pretty tense right?

The author of this tense piece of children’s literature is American/Japanese Kimiko Kajikawa. She was teased as a child for being ‘that slanty-eyed girl’ but instead of letting this get her down, she used her unique perspective to write retellings of old Japanese folklore for an American audience to help spread awareness and culturally respect. The piece is illustrated in collage by Caldecott winner Ed Young, a Chinese-born American illustrator, who has illustrated over eighty books and written close to twenty of them.

Tsunami! is a picture book illustrated in mixed media. Don’t know what mixed media is? It all comes down to an artist ripping apart materials and then collaging it onto a flat surface so that the many different, small bits all become a complete, large piece of art. Mixed media is great for creating depth within the piece but it can also smoother the three dimensional affect if over done or not done correctly, which, unfortunately is what happens in Tsunami!. It’s very hit or miss within the thirty-two pages with landscape shots being a little lack-luster but close-up shots looking really quite lovely. What was really ingenious about using mixed media was the dwarfing affect of using little ripped pieces of paper to become the victims on the far away beach and the violence of the rips and tears of the materials adds to the violence of the ocean’s wave.

Now, since Tsunami! is a kid’s book it’s got a few lessons tacked into it for the kiddie’s sake.

The hero of the piece, Ojiisan, is the wealthiest man in the village and when he realizes a tsunami is coming–and that he’s the only one that knows it–he burns his rice fields to attract everyone from the beach to the top of his mountain to save their lives. It’s a lesson about sacrifice. It shows that although a sacrifice might be hard on you it could help many other people and that’s what’s important. Considering how ruthlessly greedy kids are (trust me I know, I’m a professional nanny) it’s a lesson they could all stand to learn about a little more in their day-to-day lives!

My final thoughts on Tsunami! are that it’s good. The art is a mixed bag of mixed media but the simple and engaging story is both helpful to relay kid’s fears about scary natural disasters and to teach them that a little sacrifice goes a long way. This book is a story that’s a celebration of both the power of nature and the power each of us holds within.   

Nancy Drew and The Ringmaster’s Secret: Girl Power and Mysteries for All!

A Review By: Amelia

I’ve spent this last year re-reading the Nancy Drew books. Why, you might ask. Well, I spent my childhood reading them and thought that for nostalgia’s sake I’d read them again. So far, I’ve gotten thirty five volumes into the original fifty six and the beloved series from my childhood more or less holds up. This review is for number thirty one in the series and the book I read most recently and very much enjoyed: The Ringmaster’s Secret.

In The Ringmaster’s Secret, Nancy Drew is given a beautiful gold bracelet, decorated with five performing circus horses, with one horse missing. When she learns of the story behind the jewelry Nancy sets out on an adventure that has her joining the circus and searching through the English countryside for the answers she needs to solve it!

Now for those of you who don’t know, Carolyn Keene–the author of the Nancy Drew series–is actually a pen name that was used by many different men and women over the years. Stratemeyer Syndicate, the company that created Nancy Drew, hired a variety of writers and used the pseudonym Carolyn Keene to assure anonymity of the creator! And now you know why I don’t have anything to say about the author–because I just can’t find one!

As you probably could have deduced by yourself (see what I did there? Deduce? Because it’s a mystery series!) Nancy Drew is the main character of the series. She’s an eighteen year old, intelligent, athletic girl that’s always handy to help someone in need. She’s a pretty intense female character given the time period that she came about in, but there are a few flaws to her design. For one, she doesn’t change from book to book: physically, mentally, or emotionally. Nancy’s beliefs never waver, she doesn’t learn lessons or anything about herself that help her grow as a person, she never even ages! She’s always eighteen even though if you take into account all the time she spends on her fifty six different adventures, there’s no way that less than a year passes! None of the other characters ever change either (besides Nancy’s friend George starting to say ‘hypers’ as a catch phrase about twenty five books in)! It comes with–not only–the ghost writers but also because it was a serialization of novels and it was meant for a younger audience. Because of those above mentioned factors the characters take a back seat to the plot.

All that isn’t to say that Nancy doesn’t have her strong points! She’s an independent girl with intelligence, integrity, and empathy. She was actually created by the same man that thought up the Hardy Boys because he thought that young girls should have a strong role model and that’s pretty amazing! Nancy is a character that thinks things through, figures stuff out before anyone else, and always lends a helping hand. Some of her dialogue and especially her father’s dialogue (ex: her needing to be escorted to certain places) might seem a little out of place or sexist, but it’s certainly not often and certainly never a plot point.

Nancy Drew and The Ringmaster’s Secret is an interesting Nancy Drew book. The plot takes Nancy through the daily life of a circus performer and across the Atlantic ocean to England where, up to this point, she’d never been out of North America! It’s also one of her more challenging mysteries and, as always, she does it without becoming discouraged. She’s a kick ass female character considering the time in which she was created and, although no longer one of a kind, she’ll always be one of the first! 

My final thoughts on The Ringmaster’s Secret are that it’s one of my favourite Nancy Drew books. It has its problem of character development in the title character but that comes more from the fact that Nancy was written by ghost writers over a series of years. It has an interesting plot with Nancy joining the circus and the mystery she seeks to solve is a little more relatable with themes of love and loss. So if you’re in the business of mystery solving–on your own or reading to your kids–Nancy Drew and The Ringmaster’s Secret is the book for you!