It captures time
And puts it in a frame
Smiles, frowns, tears and laughter
Of people in the past.
A snippet of a story,
A taste of a tale,
Like a crumb of a cake.
Pictures percieve people,
Posing or playing,
They are memories,
Showing stories
Seen and unseen.
Well, I’ve been sending out e-mails to library staff trying to drum up support for our winter reading club blog, and I realized the only decent thing to do if I want to put my money where my mouth is, would be to lend some support to the library’s other blog: Wanderer on the Web. So here we go.
Look, it’s true—I’ll be thirty years old in 2008, but I never outgrew comic books. In fact, in all truth, I actually appreciate them more as an adult, though I’m a good deal more discriminating than I was when I was a kid. You can only read so many stories about superpowered people in spandex before you start to feel like, “Show me something different, already.”
Fortunately, as I’ve grown up, Western comic books, themselves, have grown up right along with me—almost to the point where they’re not meant for kids at all anymore (but that’s a topic for another day). Still, straight-forward superheroics don’t in general ring my bell the way they used to.
That being said, I try to keep up with the general goings-on within the major superhero universes, and the library’s graphic novel collection has been a great resource for me in that respect. Case in point, a few weeks ago I was downstairs in the technical processing room and saw Young Avengers: Sidekicks and Young Avengers: Family Matters just waiting to enter circulation, so I placed my holds and later checked them out.
This is a strange series in some ways. It’s the brain child of a television writer lured in by Marvel Comics owing to his day job on the writing staff of “The O.C.”. The characters are all originals—though patterned off of existing characters. Sort of teenage versions of the Marvel flagship characters, Iron Man, Hulk, Captain America, and Thor. Something like this would fit right in at DC Comics where teen sidekicks have been the norm ever since the debut of Robin, Boy Wonder, back in 1940, but Marvel have typically eschewed that route.
To be sure, none of these characters is actually a bona fide sidekick, and to be doubly sure, an aspect of the series hook is that the big name heroes from which the protagonists draw their inspiration actually don’t seem to want them.
Alan Heinberg’s dialogue is very snarky and youth friendly—though the initial issues sort of straddled the fine line of cliché in that respect—and the narrative embraces tried-and-true themes of isolation, rebellion, being different and misunderstood…so it’s pretty much what you would expect from a concept intended for a teenage audience.
Heinberg’s writing style proved to be a good fit to this Young Avengers property, and yet, it is difficult to unequivocally commend this to the younger audience owing to inextricable tie-ins to pre-existing continuity, some of which reach back well into the 1980s. Actually, make that the 1960s, since modern readers are unlikely to know very much about Captain Marvel, the specter of whom lingers over at least part of the second volume, Family Matters.
If I’m not mistaken, these two trade paperbacks contain together the entirety of the Young Avengers series, and I’m not sure if it was discontinued because it wasn’t catching on, or if Heinberg’s other commitments simply made it impossible for him to keep to a regular schedule. I think this series probably deserved a wider readership, but at the moment, Young Avengers stands as something of a minor blip upon the Marvel Universe. An interesting experiment at expanding the brand, but ultimately, it left behind little of consequence.
Still, worth a look.
Emmy and the Incredible Shrinking Rat by Lynne Jonell
I admit it; I originally picked up this book for its cleverly drawn falling rat sidelined in the margins of the story. The writing, however, is catchy and fun and this book turned out to be a page turner without the help of its witty illustrations. It’s about Emmy, a recently rich student at Grayson Lake Elementary. She tries to be a good girl, always answering questions and doing what she is told. Only, there’s a slight problem: she can hear the class pet (a rat) talking to her. This ability, and some increasingly sinister confrontations with her nanny Miss Barmy, sets Emmy (and the Rat) on an adventure through the rodent kingdom and beyond.
Emmy’s parents use their newfound affluence to constantly travel the world, often leaving Emmy in the care of Miss Barmy, a nanny seemingly preoccupied with the young girl’s physical and mental health. Miss Barmy is constantly interrupting Emmy’s life to administer “treatments for her own good.” Only something isn’t quite right in Emmy’s life (aside from the talking rat!) because no one ever seems to notice her.
The day she discovers she can talk to a rat (and that rat wants out of his cage immediately) the desperately lonely Emmy catches the attention of classmate and soccer star Joe and then their adventure really begins,because Joe gets bitten by the Rat and suddenly finds himself eye to eye with the rodent. Emmy, Joe, and the Rat must find a way to unshrink the now pint-sized soccer player. To do this, they travel to the Antique Rat and find aid from a slew of magical rodentia from around the world. They also make a few enemies, and one of them is Miss Barmy, who uses the rodents’ powers for her own nefarious purposes.
Join Emmy, Joe, and the Rat on their adventures through the worlds of rodents and magic. Along the way, Emmy, Joe, and the Rat make new friends and discover their strengths, all through Jonell’s laugh aloud prose. Their travels through size and emotion explore a range of relationships between loved ones, friends, and enemies as well as lessons about what it means to stand up for oneself. The story is uplifting and even the bad guys get their just rewards and are satisfied with the results.
This fun, witty book will keep you guessing. If you enjoy mystery paired with a little comedy you will enjoy this pick. Follow four orphans as they try and dismantle the evil Mr. Curtain’s plan to control the world. The four characters were chosen to thwart Mr. Curtain’s plan because of their uniquely different special talents. They will attend a special school run by Mr. Curtain where they will work together to learn Mr. Curtain’s evil plan for using children to take over the world. Don’t miss how this adventure will end. Check it out. Really!
So it seems that Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass is causing quite a stir which has been roused further by the release of the major motion picture The Golden Compass.
The controversy surrounding the book lies in the interpretations of the books’ view on religion. One perspective says that the book has anti-religious themes. The opposite view states that the book is just a fantasy adventure, set in an alternative world where people’s souls manifest themselves as animals, talking bears fight wars, and Gyptians and witches coexist.
So is this just fantasy or is this anti-religious or is it both? Should this book be challenged in libraries and schools? Who should decide who should and shouldn’t read a book?
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