A warm play on the theme of inclusivity, with horrors more huggable than otherwise.
A sheltered young monster discovers that the world isn’t as hostile to her kind as she had been led to believe.
Readers who like their monsters cute as well as scary are in for a treat, as Davault fills her panels and montages with the (mostly) humanoid but variously horned, clawed, fanged, and multiheaded inhabitants of Mr. Halloway’s Home for Horrors. They possess expressive faces, stylishly disarranged bangs (or, as the case may be, tentacles), and distinctly childlike ways. Blue-skinned, tufty-tailed Iris has always been told by (human) Mr. Halloway that he is protecting her and her fellow creatures in his isolated manor house from being hunted down. But when she takes advantage of a rare chance to venture into nearby Dead End Springs, she gets a warm welcome—from everyone except Mathias, an orphan raised by his traumatized aunt to believe that monsters are dangerous. Some actually are, it turns out…but after the frightening dolls one horror creates sell like hotcakes to the delighted locals and Iris’ companions help to save the town from an escaped dreamon who has turned into a nightmare, even Mathias comes around. Better yet, Iris emerges with her yearning to belong to a family fulfilled by the discovery that she has really been living with one all along, and she joins her housemates in turning the mansion into a monster hotel.
A warm play on the theme of inclusivity, with horrors more huggable than otherwise. (author’s note, concept art) (Graphic fantasy. 8-11)Pub Date: July 25, 2023
ISBN: 9781665903080
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: April 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2023
This kid-friendly satire ably sets claws into a certain real-life franchise.
A trip to the Love Love Angel Kitty World theme park (“The Most Super Incredibly Happy Place on Earth!”) turns out to be an exercise in lowered expectations…to say the least.
When Uncle Murray wins a pair of free passes it seems at first like a dream come true—at least for Kitty, whose collection of Love Love Kitty merch ranges from branded underwear to a pink chainsaw. But the whole trip turns into a series of crises beginning with the (as it turns out) insuperable challenge of getting a cat onto an airplane, followed by the twin discoveries that the hotel room doesn’t come with a litter box and that the park doesn’t allow cats. Even kindhearted Uncle Murray finds his patience, not to say sanity, tested by extreme sticker shock in the park’s gift shop and repeated exposures to Kitty World’s literally nauseating theme song (notation included). He is not happy. Fortunately, the whole cloying enterprise being a fiendish plot to make people so sick of cats that they’ll pick poultry as favorite pets instead, the revelation of Kitty’s feline identity puts the all-chicken staff to flight and leaves the financial coffers plucked. Uncle Murray’s White, dumpy, middle-aged figure is virtually the only human one among an otherwise all-animal cast in Bruel’s big, rapidly sequenced, and properly comical cartoon panels.
This kid-friendly satire ably sets claws into a certain real-life franchise. (Graphic satire. 8-11)Pub Date: Dec. 29, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-20808-8
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: Sept. 28, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2020
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A winner.
When a young girl’s imagination and creativity are co-opted by a mysterious new friend, she must find a way to regain what is rightfully hers.
Sandy is a brown-skinned, dark-haired girl with big black eyes and a vivid imagination. At night, as she goes to sleep, she catches the lights bobbing about in her room and turns them into anything she imagines. The next day is spent drawing the fantastical creatures from her dreams, much to the detriment of her schoolwork. When a tall, pale-skinned girl with purple hair befriends her, Sandy is excited, though there is something eerie and unsettling about her new companion. Her excitement soon turns to anger as Morfie enters her imaginative nighttime world and tries to take it over. Readers will cheer at the clever way in which Sandy regains control. Using a lovely palette that includes a liberal amount of rich, dark purple, Colombian-born Alvarez has drawn a world that harks back to her native Bogotá and days in Catholic school, evoking it in wonderful detail and atmosphere. Her pages are not crowded yet are filled with details that will engage readers. The beings that inhabit Sandy’s nighttime world are simply delightful. The album size, cloth spine binding, and spot gloss on the cover are the icing on the cake of this beautiful graphic novel.
A winner. (Graphic fantasy. 8-10)Pub Date: March 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-910620-13-7
Page Count: 56
Publisher: Nobrow Ltd.
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
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