The Crow Death and Rebirth: The Crow Lives Once More

A Review By: Amelia

If you’re a follower of Bookworms Unite you’ll know I’ve posted about The Crow before: it’s my favourite comic and movie of all time. Since the success of the first movie though, there’s been a plethora of sequels hoping to cash in and, let’s face it, they’ve all been pretty subpar (I’m thinking of a much worse word but I’m going to reframe from using it lest there are fans for the sequels reading this). The Crow: Death and Rebirth was a comic that I avoided for awhile thinking it was going to go down the same road as the movie franchise, but when I found the complete graphic novel half off at a book store, I thought why not? Surprisingly, I wasn’t disappointed.

The Crow has been reborn: this time in Tokyo. Jamie Osterberg finds his life torn apart when Haruko, his girlfriend, is kidnapped and somehow changed into a different person. As he struggles to find out how and why he himself is killed. Of course, he doesn’t stay dead. The Crow must once more make the wrong thing right—but this time he might have to do it by killing the woman he loves the most...

John Shirley is the author of more than a dozen books, most in the cyberpunk or splatterpunk genre. He’s also written prequels and sequels to videogames and movies including BioShock and The Crow. He’s been the recipient of the Horror Writers Association’s Bram Stoker Award and won the International Horror Guild Award for his collection Black Butterflies. Shirley has also fronted punk bands and written lyrics for his own music, as well as for Blue Oyster Cult and other groups. A principal screenwriter for The Crow movie starring Brandon Lee, Shirley now devotes most of his time to writing for television and film.

The main characters of the piece are Jamie, an American studying in Tokyo, Haruko, his Japanese girlfriend, and the shadowy broad of directors at an unsavoury multi-billion dollar corporation. Overall the cast of characters is varied and interesting, but you learn very little about them throughout the piece. In the original Crow you came to know Shelly and Eric through numerous flashbacks until they felt like characters you’d known all your life. Unfortunately with Jamie and Haruko, you only get the opening of the graphic novel to learn about their relationship and it really doesn’t seem as loving and amazing as Shelly and Eric’s. The same goes with Jamie once he becomes the Crow. Jamie lacks the humanity that made Eric such an interesting serial killing vigilante. It just makes what Jamie and Haruko go through seem flat. It’s got life to it, but the life is a little cookie cutter-esque.  

The art style, like the writing style, in Death and Rebirth is a gritty and dark style. It’s got sharp lines and shadowy, murky colours. Faces are minimalistic and the landscape even more so. It’s an interesting choice since the piece takes place in Tokyo and there’s not an inch of that city that’s not covered in advertisements and neon lights. All in all, the shadowy and dark colouring that’s featured in Death and Rebirth is on par with the original Crow (of course the original didn’t have colour, but that’s beside the point).

My final thoughts on The Crow: Death and Rebirth are that it’s pretty good–it’s no where close to the original because I’ll be damned if that wasn’t the most genuine thing I’ve ever read!–but Death and Rebirth wasn’t trying to be the original Crow (unlike all those horrible movie sequels that tried to cash in on the original’s success). It was a revamp–a rebirth–of the franchise. Although it didn’t hit every mark it attempted to hit, it was still an interesting take on James O’Barr’s mythology. Death and Rebirth  has its own story with its own themes and if you’re a Crow fan, it’s definitely worth looking into.

Party Monster: Murder Has Never Been So Much Fun!

A Review By: Amelia

I often find myself drawn to the darkest, most disturbing, bursting-with-salacious-personal-details of memoirs I can find. There’s just something about a life lived in an impure way that’s so compelling to read about. When I watched the movie Party Monster and then discovered it was based on a book, how could I resist?

Disco Bloodbath: A Fabulous but True Tale of Murder in Clubland re-released under the title Party Monster: A Fabulous but True Tale of Murder in Clubland is a 1999 memoir written by James St. James about his life as a Manhattan celebutante and club kid. The book specifically chronicles his friend Michael Alig’s rise to fame and his subsequent fall after the murder of fellow club kid and drug dealer Angel Melendez.

James St. James (born James Clark) was a club kid of the crazy Manhattan club scene in the late 1980s/early 1990s. He was notorious for a lifestyle of excess that included heavy drug use, partying, and bizarre costumes. St. James was Michael Alig’s mentor in the scene and one of his closest friends leading up to Alig’s murder conviction.

When Party Monster was first published, it was a storm of controversy. Apparently people just weren’t ready for its vivid, striking, often disturbing, and always outrageous depiction of the hedonistic world of New York City’s club kid scene. The book is an inside story of life in clubs like The Tunnel and The Limelight and the drugs, sex, music, and mayhem that existed during the heyday of the New York City club culture written by the man that more or less started it.

That’s only half the story though. The other half of the story revolves around Michael Alig, the gay kid from nowhere special who came to New York and blew up the club scene to the hedonistic levels that they’re known for nowadays. You learn a lot about his character through St. James’ recollections about him, and even though he’d been high through a lot of it, his descriptions are anything but lacking. He was a selfish and semi-sadistic kid who let his sudden fame go to his head. How did all this turn into the murder of a fellow club kid? Drugs of course. When Angel Melendez got angry at Alig for using all his drugs without paying, Alig fought back, killing him in the grisly manner and then dismembering him. From that point to the point of his arrest, Alig told anybody and everybody he could that he had, indeed, killed Angel. St. James says that he was told a few days after the murder while doing drugs with Alig at his apartment.

But while St. James's flashy approach is artful and engaging to this macabre tale of murder, St. James has no sympathy for the victim of the crime. Alig, after being sentenced to up to twenty years in prison is reeling with regret and shame. The closest thing to emotion on display is St. James's obsessive need to document the highs and lows of life with Alig and his own self-pity at the end of his carousing days with him.

All this is told in a stylish and very campy prose of a self-proclaimed rather needy diva and Alig’s best friend. St. James has a way with his words that makes it seem like all this happened just last week and not drug-induced haze years ago. There are funny parts where you can’t help but laugh out loud, and the description of Alig’s murder is gruesome and ghastly to no end. St. James's account of the rise and fall of Michael Alig is, truly, a most unconventional contribution to the body of true crime. Mixing outrageous exploits of club queens with the running commentary of a babbling drug addict, St. James fuses humor and narcotic enthusiasm with pure camp and the result is a flamboyant and engrossing first-person narrative.

My final thoughts on Party Monster are that it’s highly enjoyable. St. James tells two stories: one his own about the club kid life full of all-night parties and uncountable drugs and one of Michael Alig, the maddeningly selfish, mostly crazy murderer that not only made St. James’ life, but also ruined it. His story, despite its gruesome subject matter and frequent, shocking lucidity, has a chatty and anecdotal quality that's compelling, endearing, and human when it comes right down to it. St. James’ comes off as shallow and full of self-importance, but why not? It’s how he’s felt about himself since his club kid days! It’s an entertaining red full of salacious giddiness, queeny commentary, and decadent details. If you’re looking for a fuller account of the Alig/Melendez murder, look elsewhere. It’s an insider’s take on events, not factual accounts. Treat this book as it was meant to be treated: a technicolour-lurid portrayal of addiction, self-delusion, narcissism, and depravity that shows that murder was never so much fun!

Circus Bulgaria: A Strange Look Into Bulgaria

A Review By: Amelia

In a departure of how I usually review only one short story from a collection, this week’s short story review is on a full book of short stories. Why? Circus Bulgaria was a unique short story collection. Each story usually lasted only a little longer than three pages each and I found it difficult to choose just one to write about! All that being said, here are my thoughts on the short story collection Circus Bulgaria.

A boxer-turned-hitman faces an impossible mission to kill his brother; an entirely insane man becomes part of a political rally; a master puppeteer loses her craft for something more profitable; artists are discharged from the army; and a fading beauty is courted by a suitor with suspiciously scaly hands. Circus Bulgaria draws on the monsters and myths of Balkan folklore, the brutal reality of the Communist regime and the magic of the author’s own imagination. The fifty stories included in this collection have a surreal and almost hypnotic quality. Absurd, painfully funny and deeply sad, Circus Bulgaria reaches straight into the bizarre heart of Eastern Europe.

Deyan Enev was born in Sofia, Bulgaria. He graduated from Sofia University, where he studied Bulgarian language and literature and among his various occupations are house-painter, hospital attendant, teacher, copywriter. As a journalist he has published over 2000 pieces with 12 short story collections among those. Circus Bulgaria was long-listed for the prestigious Frank O’Connor English language short story collection contest.

Each story features a set of characters, a plot, and a location that’s completely different from the last (although Eastern Europe is where most of this takes place). Some characters get no dialogue, some aren’t even named, yet what’s really quite remarkable about Circus Bulgaria is that, even though the characters have so few pages we (as the readers) can still empathize with them or villainize them.

Circus Bulgaria is an interesting book. The stories are poignant and quick paced but I did find they ended abruptly or in a way that didn’t make much sense (at least they didn’t seem to make much sense to me). Some held my attention better than others but that’s the case with most short story collections which can be very hit or miss.

My final thoughts on Circus Bulgaria are that it’s fascinating concept but maybe not a book for everyone. With so few pages to work with, each story starts with a bang and usually ends with one too but the lack of set-up information/the abrupt endings might put some people off. However, if you’re a deep reader, that dynamic works very well within this book. So check this book out if you’re looking for something you’ve probably never seen before.

Bloodline: A Decent Sequel to Dracula That Only Took 117 Years To Arrive

A Review By: Amelia

When one thinks of a true Gothic novel, what comes to mind? What about the best vampire to ever stalk the streets in search of blood? What about the most bad-ass vampire hunter to wield a stake and mallet? The answer to all these questions is, of course, the novel Dracula. With so much in Bram Stoker’s masterpiece to love, why did he never write more in the Dracula mythos? I do believe Kate Cary thought the same thing and, to rectify the situation, she sat down and penned the fabulous Bloodline, the unofficial sequel to Dracula.

Bloodline is a continuation of the Dracula mythology with the story of Quincy Harker: a charming, rogue British army officer who has been leading a secret life because he’s a vampire. He seduces an innocent girl by the name of Lily and, when he takes her back to his family’s castle in Transylvania, he lures her older brother to save her. This, in turn, is all part of a much bigger plot involving the cursed bloodline of Dracula.

The author of Bloodline (and its sequel Bloodline Reckoning) is Kate Cary who has also written for the series Warriors under the pen name of Erin Hunter. She’s a fairly unknown author but it hardly matters: she has an elegant and intelligent style that hard to put down once you start: especially with the Bloodline series.

Bloodline has some very interesting characters: some new and some homage to the original Dracula story. Until the last part of the novel though, there are only four characters that you need concern yourself with. John Shaw is the kind-hearted, older brother of Lily Shaw, who is the innocent and naïve soul that Quincy Harker, the charming vampire, has seduced to become his vampire bride. Along for the ride is Mary Seward, a nurse that fell in love with John and wishes to help him save his sister from a grisly undeath. Of these four characters though, Quincy and Mary are the most fleshed out. No disrespect to John and Lily Shaw, but John spends the first half of the book raving mad from his experiences in the First World War, and Lily is just such a weak human being her character is washed out by the more commanding Quincy, who she spends most of the book with.

Bloodline has some great locations within its three hundred and fifty pages. It begins with one of my favourite locations: the trenches of war torn France. The picture of war is painted beautifully with the mud, the vermin, the violence, and gore of the First World War. Moving from the trenches of France is a war hospital in England that used to be an asylum and a gloomy old manor where Lily lives. When Quincy meets her at this gloomy manor, they make their way across Europe before arriving at the imposing and dark castle that Quincy calls his childhood home. They’re great locations that, without over imposing, showcase the characters wonderfully.

Bloodline is a great book written around what could have been a really lacklustre topic. I mean a sequel to Dracula? Who needs that? As it turns out, I needed a sequel to Dracula no matter how non-sequitur it may seem! The characters are genuine, the writing is poignant and on tone, and the locations paint a grim and gothic façade that really bring this unofficial sequel of Dracula to life.

My final thoughts on Bloodline are that this is a great take on the Dracula mythology. It gives us characters that are human, even when they’re vampires and the writing is vivid and powerful as first person diary entries are a great homage to the original Dracula novel. Plus there’s some steamy lesbian vampire sex! Plus being set in World War One is always a big draw for drama, violence, and good ol’ fashioned vampire gore–none of that Twilight ‘I only eat animals’ garbage! All added up and Bloodline gets high marks from me!

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight: This Comic Proves That Buffy’s Still Got It!

A Review By: Amelia 

I always liked Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I well admit that the last few seasons of the show lost me in how truly ridiculous some of them were (I mean, that one where there’s a freeze ray–what the hell is that?). I did however like how the series ended: it was touching and meaningful and I didn’t think–for a long, long time–that Buffy should continue after such a great wrap-up. Anyway, after many years of doubt, I decided to give the comics (which go by seasons) a chance. Surprisingly, they did not disappoint.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight is a comic book series that serves as a canonical continuation of the television series and follows the events that come of the show’s finale. The story arch of the series is as follows.

A year after the end of the television series, Buffy and Xander now lead command-central of slayers and at their disposal are a wide array of psychics, seers, witches, and Slayers (around 1800 by Buffy’s count and 500 working and training with Buffy herself). In the wake of Sunnydale’s destruction, elements within the United States government view the expanded Slayers as international terrorists and characterize Buffy as a "charismatic, uncompromising and completely destructive" leader. Many villains from Buffy’s past make appearances and they are all connected to a new foe named Twilight. He’s the enigmatic big bad of season eight and seeks to destroy all the Slayers and bring about an end to all magic on Earth.

The authors and artists of the Buffy comics are numerous but include Georges Jeanty (who is a comic book penciller and worked on The American Way), Brian K. Vaughan (who is a comic writer and worked on Y: The Last Man, Ex Machina, Pride of Baghdad, and Saga), and, the creator of Buffy himself, Joss Whedon (who also wrote Dollhouse, Firefly, and The Avengers movie). Whedon doesn’t write any of the main stories but the writers that stand in for him do a remarkable job capturing the tone and essence of the Buffy-verse in the characters, themes, and dialogue.

The art style of Buffy Season Eight is a mostly realistic style with bland,

mostly empty landscapes, but exceptional foreground and facial details. It’s shadowy and dark–more so than the show ever was–but it’s not overbearing or distracting in any way. It actually suits the comic media better to have it more shadowy. And the comic is by no means just dark shadows. As I mentioned a few sentences ago, the facial details go a long way and there’s more than a few times when a face Buffy makes when caught off guard will bring a smile to your face. Sure it’s cartoony, but the whole premise kind of is, so why not?

The themes that Buffy had during its television run are present in the comics. It’s all quite heavy when you look past the witty quips, fast-paced sarcasm, and cartoony facial expressions of surprise. Loyalty and sexuality are there, as our revelations about friendship (especially concerning Willow and Buffy). Some of it gets a little overused–especially Buffy and Dawn’s strained sisterhood–but mostly it’s all good and all very reminiscent of the television series.

All in all, this is a great comic series and I look forward to sinking my teeth into Buffy Season Nine. Everything that made early Buffy so good were there: themes, characters, even the way they all originally talked! It helped a great deal to bring everything together and make it feel like the same universe and not just something that was tacked on at the end to try and squeeze more money from the loyal fanbase.

My final thoughts on Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight are that it’s good. Better than good. I’ll even go as far as to say that these comics are better than the last season of the television show! The characters seem truer and more on-point than they were that last season and even Dawn (my most hated character: probably everyone’s most hated character!) was put to good use as a giant. Are these comics as good as seasons one through three of Buffy? No, because nothing will ever be as good as seasons one through three of Buffy! But the comics do a good job capturing the characters we all grew to love so much and the sometimes ridiculous, mostly over-the-top story lines that made Buffy so memorable! If you were sad to see Buffy the Vampire Slayer end, then you owe it to yourself to read the comics!

Suck It, Wonder Woman: Olivia Munn’s Middle Finger To Everyone Who Isn’t Her…

A Review By: Amelia

I believe–as the proud feminist that I am–that women are just as funny as men. Women are cultured to not be funny by society which is a real shame because if the female comic royalty has proven (Sarah Silverman, Tina Fey, Amy Poehler just to name a few) women can be down right hilarious! It’s why I make a point to try and read books like Suck It, Wonder Woman; they’re books written by women who are funny, witty, sarcastic, insightful etc. etc., and have used those skills to burst into usually male dominated fields to stake their own claim. Olivia Munn managed to do this–and do it well! Unfortunately, her book… well, let’s say it doesn’t really do her any favours.

Suck It, Wonder Woman is a collection of humorous essays about Olivia Munn’s life as a Hollywood geek. This book also includes things like a timeline of the great moments in geek history and her answers to the unofficial geek FAQ. All in all, it’s a random book written by a random woman.

The author of the piece is Olivia Munn who is an actress/mega-geek. On the G4 show Attack of the Show! she’s known for her immaculate timing and scathing wit. She’s graced magazine covers–from Entertainment Weekly to Playboy–and has a loyal fan base that have dubbed her Leader of the Nerds.

Pie is a heavy theme through the book

The general plot behind Munn’s book is partly stories about her life and partly observational/list and art based humour all seemingly dispersed throughout the book at random. The book lacks any kind of formal writing style and relays heavily on words oral filler words: like, right, and fuck/shit/really any other swear word you can imagine being the ones that are repeated the most. It does distract and annoy after a while but it’s not the worst part of the book. Personally, I found the biggest problem with Munn’s life story was that Munn was telling it! If I were her editor, I would definitely tell her to change her tone. She talks about stories where she got called a slut for absolutely no reason and how much it hurt and then in the next chapter she’s slut-shaming other women. I mean, how does she justify doing a topless Maxim shoot as empowering for her but degrading and shameful for other women There’s also parts where she talks about her body issues and says that she can finally accept her body nowadays but, from reading what she’s written, you see she’s only comfortable with her own body by shaming everyone else be they fat or skinny!

Munn on Maxim

Overall, the tones and themes of Suck It, Wonder Woman probably weren’t meant to sound as bitchy as they did but, honestly, that’s no excuse for it to have been in the book in the first place! That’s not even mentioning her use of ‘all things feminine’ to be inferior–sigh–what a piss off! One of many examples of this are in the chapter where she talks about men getting sick and as soon as that happens they grow a vagina. Really? You call yourself a feminists and that’s how you choose to describe that? By putting down your whole gender as weak and pathetic? So, yeah, those unnecessarily misogynistic bits really got my hackles up, but when she’s talking about other things–her family, school life, or just random stories–it can be readable.

My final thoughts on Suck It, Wonder Woman are that it’s so-so. The misogynistic tone and phrasing on Munn’s part were disgusting (to say the least) but hearing about her life was at least entertaining. I mean, sure, it’s not a literary masterpiece, but did we really expect it to be? I’d give it 2 and a quarter stars out of five: enjoyable one-fifth of the time, okay two-fifths of the time, and horrid two-fifths of the time. All in all, she’s got no reason to believe herself better than Wonder Woman and I can definitively say that you can read Suck It, Wonder Woman if you love Olivia Munn, but avoid it if you feel anything else for her!

Night of the Moon: Fact Filled and Fun and Not Just for Kids!

A Review By: Amelia

I’m not going to lie: I don’t know a hell of a lot about Muslim culture. I never studied it in history classes, never took religion classes, and there’s little to none Muslim representation in anything I’ve ever seen on television or movies (which is probably the biggest factor of my ignorance). When I was asked a question about the holidays Muslim’s celebrate by the two little boys I look after, I had no idea how to answer. So I once again packed up the little rugrats and headed to my local library where I found the very helpful book Night of the Moon: A Muslim Holiday Story. Lucky or what?

The premise of Night of the Moon is a simple one. It follows Yasmeen, a seven-year-old Pakistani-American girl, as she and her family celebrates the Muslim holidays of Ramadan, The Night of the Moon, and Eid. It’s a story that offers a window into modern Muslim culture and into the ancient roots from within its traditions have grown.

The author of Night of the Moon is Hena Khan, a Pakistani-American Muslim who was born and raised in America but celebrated her native Pakistan’s culture and religion. She’s written many children’s books about the Muslim faith but she’s also covered topics from spies to space travel as well. The illustrator that she worked with on Night of the Moon was Julie Paschkis, an award winning illustrator with a long list of art schools under her belt and a BFA to top it all off.

The art style of Night of the Moon is perfect for the story it’s telling. It looks to be a thick acrylic style that’s intricate but not perfect. The paintbrush (or whatever tool was used to create the artwork) was held lightly and allowed to swoop and glide where it wanted. The main colour of the piece is blue and there is such a rich variety of blue that it creates an unbelievable lushness. It’s the perfect colour to focus on for a book about a Muslim holiday centred around the moon and it really does evoke just such a feeling of looking at traditional Islamic art. 

The themes of this children’s book are very clearly laid out: it’s a book to teach children about Muslim holidays. Unlike other kid’s books Night of the Moon is not centred around teaching kids a moral lesson through clever use of talking animals. It takes a culturally authentic account of Ramadan, delivers it in a sensitive way to Muslim tradition, and holds onto its steadfast integrity. All thirty two pages of the piece are detailed and reverent of its Middle Eastern background and it’s done in a way to keep kid’s attention so that they learn about something that happens in the real world!

My final thoughts on Night of the Moon are that it’s an excellent book to read if you’re looking to help your children understand a different culture or if you yourself know nothing about Ramadan and want to dip your toes! The artwork is lush and gorgeous, the story helpful and entertaining and there’s even a glossary at the end of the book that goes over the Arabic words that are mentioned in the piece and how they relate to the Islamic faith. Overall, Night of the Moon is a good representation of Muslim holidays that’s beautiful, fact-filled, and respectful to the culture.

Blue is for Nightmares: A Young Adult Novel That Isn’t A Nightmare To Read!

A Review By: Amelia

Young adult novels can be a treasure trove of awesome characters, unique plotlines, and a few hours of good times. Of course young adult novels can also be a breeding ground for crappy authors just looking for their fifteen minutes of fame and a quick buck–we can all thank Stephenie Meyer and her shit Twilight series for that! Luckily for me, Blue is the Nightmares was not just a Twilight copycat but a young adult novel actually worth checking out!

Stacey Brown, a 16 year old Junior at Hillcrest Boarding School, is a hereditary Wiccan through her grandmother. She wants to have a normal high school experience, but things begin to crumble around her when she starts having terrifying nightmares about the death of her best friend and roommate, Drea. It is not the first time she's had these prophetic nightmares as, three years ago, a girl she used to babysit was murdered. Stacey had ignored her nightmares then, but now she’s having them again and, after the last time, she knows they’ll come true.

The author of Blue is for Nightmares (and the three novels that follow in the series) is Laurie Faria Stolarz. Her work always features teenage protagonists and blend elements of mystery and romance. The magical/Wiccan elements found in her books are influenced by her home city: the one and only Salem Massachusetts, known widely for the Salem witch trials of 1692.

The cast of characters in Blue is for Nightmares is a group of teenagers with a staple stereotype from each group. There’s Amber the eccentric crazy one, PJ the punkish class clown, Drea the diva, Stacey the regular girl next door, and Chad the all American athlete. Each character fits a stereotype but each character is also a human: they’re fleshed out and deeper than they appear at first glance. Chad is an athlete but is also an intellectual, Amber is strange but she’s incredibly loyal, and Stacey–the main character of the piece–is a practicing witch, having learned witchcraft (or Wicca if you prefer) from her grandmother, and as it turns out, isn’t as normal as she appears. The story may take advantage of the old teenage typecast standbys, but instead of becoming bogged down in them, Stolarz puts them to good use as a solid foundation to build upon.

The location of Blue is for Nightmares takes place completely on the campus of an American boarding school and I don’t know about the rest of you, but before this book, I’d never read a book that took place at a boarding school. A rich private school yes, but never a boarding school–it was a nice change on the stereotypical teen high school drama (just like the characters). What makes the boarding school so interesting a location is that the story must take place within these confines. In the usual private school setting the students don’t live there–they can come and go off campus as often as they like and when scary shit happens on campus, they can go home and ‘be safe’ (even though we all know that’s not how it works). When the scary shit happens on campus at a boarding school though, you live there–you can’t leave. It heightens the suspense and adds an extra level of danger to a plot that–if it were happening anywhere else–would be a little hum-drum.

With a unique setting and great characters, Blue is for Nightmares is something special compared to other young adult novels. The only thing I found myself not liking were the conversations that happened between groups of the main characters. They seemed like the sort of thing that adults think teenagers say instead of things that they actually do–but that’s the case with almost all novels about teenagers.

My final thoughts on Blue is for Nightmares is that it’s pretty good. It’s not the best young adult novel I’ve ever read, but it’s by no means the worst. It’s a young adult novel that gives more than most of that genre do with characters that you think you know, but don’t, a location that seems familiar, but is brand new, and a plotline that’s a little bit supernatural, but is just real enough to be truly creepy!

Listen to the Wind: Collage and Life Lessons!

A Review By: Amelia

I’m a very empathetic soul. I am, in fact, so empathetic that sometimes all it takes for me to get all choked up and teary eyed is a touching commercial. Now, you’d think someone stuffed full of as much empathy as me would avoid sappy things like the plague, but you’d be wrong. Sometimes I actively seek out things that I know will tug on my heart strings. It’s how I found the kid’s book Listen to the Wind. It’s the story of how one man changed the lives of thousands of kids and if that’s not enough to make you teary-eyed just thinking about it, I don’t know what is!

Greg Mortenson stumbled, lost and delirious, into a remote Himalayan village after a failed climb up K2. The villagers saved his life, and he vowed to return and build them a school. The story of Listen to the Wind is about how he kept his promise. It’s told in the voice of the village children, and illuminates the humanity and culture of a relevant and distant part of the world.

Greg Mortenson is the co-founder of non-profit Central Asia Institute, Pennies For Peace, and co-author of New York Times bestseller ‘Three Cups of Tea’ which has been published in 39 countries, and a New York Times bestseller for three years since its January 2007 release. Of course, there has been some drama concerning the man’s charities. Mortenson got into some trouble a few years back about misspending his charities’ money and, although no criminal misuse (fraud) was found and he was cleared of all charges, he had to make one million dollars of restitutions for bad book-keeping and step down from being involved with CAI (Central Asia Institute). All that doesn’t necessarily make him a bad man, but it is information that should be known before you decide to check out this book!

The illustrator and co-author of the piece is Susan L. Roth and she’s been involved with young peoples’ literature for most of her career with forty books under her belt. Roth’s primary artistic medium is collage.

The whole point of this little story is about how one person really can make a difference and that communities working together can create a lot of good. Whether or not you admire Mortenson (or had admired him before his book-keeping scandal) it’s still a great story to tell kids as its lessons of charity and the importance of education are universal no matter who you are. A story like this will help kids feel closer to children in other parts of the world, and will help them develop into a more empathetic soul.

The artwork in Listen to the Wind is mixed media, collage style art which Roth is primarily known for. Roth

used a variety of materials to create the colourful collages on each page. An artist's note in the back explains that Roth was inspired by actual artifacts from the region, in which nothing ever goes to waste. A woman's hat was “…like a sculpture of cloth fragments, bright colored yarn and metal accents.” It’s a beautiful and very striking style and the materials used for the mixed media collages make you feel like you can actually feel the soft clothes of the clothing or rough texture of the terrain.

My final thoughts on Listen to the Wind are that it’s a cute little book. Both Mortenson and Roth are respectful of the culture and Roth’s collage art is beautiful. The story will help kids become more world aware and maybe give them a little spark for charity. Don’t focus on Mortenson’s bad business decisions if you ever stumble upon this book, there are many good things still to be found in Listen to the Wind besides that! 

Kingdom Hearts: Final Fantasy and Disney Combined To Make Gold!

A Review By: Amelia

When I first started playing Kingdom Hearts, I thought there was going to be no way that they would combine Final Fantasy and Disney (two of my favourite things) into something that didn’t offend me in one or another. I was SO wrong! Kingdom Hearts combines Final Fantasy characters with Disney worlds and leaves me squeeing in pleasure! Since its introduction to the world in 2002 it’s spanned nine original games and two HD remakes. It’s a huge franchise with tonnes of merchandise and even a manga series, which is why we’re here today!

Kingdom Hearts is the story of Sora, Kairi, and Riku, three teenagers bored with their existence on a small island. Believing there to be bigger and better worlds out there, the three build a raft to sail the seas. The day before they set sail, a world-crushing darkness invades and separates the three: Kairi and Sora are innocent bystanders swallowed by the darkness, but Riku willing goes. Now, this is where the story really begins. Sora is found by Donald Duck and Goofy (that’s right, the Disney characters) and becomes the Keyblade welder. The Keyblade has the ability to restore worlds and ‘lock’ them so further attacks can’t happen, so Sora becomes a hero of all worlds (all the worlds are Disney worlds, by the way) all the while searching for his messing friends and hoping to return home. Mixed in with that storyline is not only the Heartless’ story: the heartless mindlessly steal hearts and leave people as empty shells and they’re led by Maleficent (from Sleeping Beauty), and the Nobodies story: their led by a secret organization called Organization 13 whose hope is to build ‘Kingdom Hearts’ so that they might have hearts themselves (Nobodies are created when a strong willed person has their heart stolen by a Heartless). Still with me? I know it’s pretty complicated, but bear with me–it’s worth it!

The author (or should I say adaptor?) of Kingdom Hearts into a manga series is Shiro Amano. He’s a Japanese manga artist who’s worked on several manga projects, the most popular of which being Kingdom Hearts. He’s also worked on several Dragon Quest games as a character developer.

The characters in Kingdom Hearts is a large and varied cast of characters. There’s Disney characters with Donald and Goofy being Sora’s allies, Disney princesses being the cosmic keys, and Disney villains being the combined force of evil you battle against. Then there’s the Heartless and Nobodies that are nameless foot soldiers (so to speak) and although they’re what the good guys fight so hard against, they hold little important to the story other than being part of this massive fighting force that just keeps coming no matter what! Then there’s neutral to good characters that belong to the Disney worlds that Sora visits like Tarzan (from Tarzan), or Genie (from Aladdin), or Aerith (from Final Fantasy VII–yeah, Kingdom Hearts doesn’t go by Final Fantasy canon so she’s not dead!) The most important characters of the whole piece are Sora, Kairi, and Riku. They are completely original characters but they do draw some of their personalities, physical forms, and motivations from a mix of what Disney and Final Fantasy have done in the past. Or at least how that seemed to me–it’ll probably seem completely different to someone else! All in all the characters are great and very well rounded. Take Riku for example. He cares for his friends well being but he’s also jealous of a relationship he thinks he sees between Kairi and Sora. He wants adventure and power and he’s not afraid to reach into the darkness to get it. Then there’s Sora–the hero of the piece. While Riku finds solace in the dark side, Sora struggles against the odds to save his friends hearts and put everything back to the way it was. He’s scared of change–especially change that happens between him and his friends–and yet, to save the day, he has to travel to places he never even dreamed existed. He sacrifices bits of himself to help everyone else. Needless to say, the characters are an interesting blend and never fail to please.

The art style in this series is adorable. Just adorable. The whole damn premise of is adorable but Shiro Amano found just the right style to make this go from a six on the ‘aww’ scale to a full ten on the ‘squee-look-at-them-they’re-so-cute-I-just-want-to-squeeze-them-til-they-explode!’ scale. The faces are very minimal with small noses and mouths and big, big eyes. Character clothing and weapons are very detailed however and it’s a stark contrast to their faces. Exterior landscapes are detailed to the extent that they need to be but I found a painful lack of any interior shots that were detailed. Most of what happened indoors was just a blank white background with whatever characters were there doing whatever it was they were doing!

There’s a great many things going on in the Kingdom Hearts manga series that make it a very compelling and interesting. There’s great artwork, an amazing (although sometimes hard to follow storyline), themes of love and lost, friendship and betrayal, which, if you ask me, are pretty in-depth and intuitive of something most people will write off as childish.

My final thoughts on the Kingdom Hearts manga series are that it is wonderful! Do you have to be a fan of Disney or Final Fantasy in order to jump right in a enjoy it all? I certainly don’t think so (although it would help). Beyond what originally sold this game franchise for me (namely Beauty & the Beast!) is a great story of adventure and friendship and never giving up despite the odds! It’s got great artwork that will appeal to any manga fan and it’s just plain fun! I mean, Donald Duck and Goofy are in it–all other arguments should be invalid!