Igraine the brave

Igraine the brave / Cornelia Funke with illustrations by the author ; translated by Anthea Bell.— New York : Chicken House; Scholastic, 2007.

212 p. : ill. ; 21 cm.

ISBN: 978-0-439-90379-0

1. Fantasy fiction. 2. Knights and knighthood -- Fiction.

833.914

Unlike her parents or her annoying older brother, Igraine has no interest in becoming a magician. Let the rest of them spend their time in the castle learning spells, she has her heart set on becoming a knight. Chivalry is much more exciting than sorcery. So she’s delighted to receive an enchanted, non-squeaking, waterproof suit of armor for her twelfth birthday. Unfortunately, in the process of conjuring it up her parents accidentally turned themselves into swine and are no longer able to work magic. The spell to turn them back is complicated and requires hairs from the head of a giant. Leaving her brother to learn the spell, Igraine sets off on a quest for giant’s hair.

Igraine the brave is adventurous fun told in a light-hearted vein for younger readers. The villains behave badly, but there is none of the malicious brooding evil of the author’s Inkheart series for older readers in this tale. It’s a story populated by talking cats, playful mice, singing books, a helpful, if somewhat dense, giants, and adults that are ready to aid the spunky heroine in her quest.

Snow crash

Snow crash / Neal Stephenson. – New York ; Bantam Books, 2003, ©1992

470 p. : ill. ; 21 cm.

ISBN: 0-533-38095-8

1. Science fiction. 2.Virtual reality – Fiction.
3. Franchises (Retail trade) – Fiction.
4. Psycholinguistics – Fiction.

813.54

In the virtual online world of the metaverse Hiro Protagonist is a very important hacker. As one of architects of Black Sun, his avatar has ready access to one of the most prestigious pieces of unreal estate in virtual reality. In the real world he freelances for a spy franchise; he advertises himself as the greatest swordsman in the world, and he delivers pizza for the mob. A demanding task because Uncle Enzo expects his drivers to deliver on time – or else. So Hiro, late with a delivery is very annoyed when courier on a skateboard latches onto his car. She’s determined to stick with him by any means necessary, including harpoon and cable.

The wild pizza delivery ride is just the start. Snow Crash is a nearly non-stop chase scene, punctuated only by visits to Hiro’s virtual office where the librarian helps him figure out what on earth (or metaverse) is going on. It’s an adventure ride through both worlds. Worlds in which governments have been replaced by franchises like Mr. Lee’s Greater Hong Kong, and churches by franchises like Reverend Wayne’s Pearly Gates. Threatening the foundations of both worlds is a powerful new drug: Snow Crash. Snow Crash can wipe the human brain as clean as a computer drive that’s been reformatted, and it works on both. Who’s pushing this stuff? Is it the giant Eskimo from the Aleutian Islands cruising around Los Angeles on a motorcycle with a nuclear device in his sidecar, or is it the cable network monopolist from Houston, Texas drifting around the Pacific in his surplus aircraft carrier? Is all this yet another scheme for world domination by some self-aggrandizing megalomaniac, or a religious plot designed to erect another tower of Babble, or could it possibly be both?

145th Street

145th Street : short stories / Walter Dean Myers.— New York : Delacorte, 2007, ©2000.

160 p. ; 22 cm.

ISBN: 978-0-385-32137-2

1. Harlem (New York, N.Y.) – Fiction.
2. Afro-Americans – Fiction. 3. Short stories

813.54

Ten sublimely written short stories set on a block in Harlem portray, by turns, the humorous, horrific, heroic, downtrodden, superstitious, comic, courageous, ironic, redeeming, and reconciling aspects of life in the neighborhood.

Two Bible comics and a book about Kids and comics

Manga messiah / Hidenori Kumai, script writer; Koyumai Shinozawa, artist; Atsuko Ogawa, assistant artist.— [s.l.] : Tyndale, 2007.

287 p. : col. ill ; 21 cm.
ISBN 978414316802

1. Jesus Christ – Comic books, strips, etc. 2. Bible. N.T. Gospels – Comic books, strips, etc.
226.09505

On the whole this is a successful harmony of the four gospel narratives that uses the convention of Japanese manga to produce a graphic novel life of Christ. Biblical citations run along the bottom of each page footnoting the story. However, as with any harmony, some inconsistencies crop up. For example, on page 74 John’s version of the scourging of the temple is presented and then on page 218 a shorter version from the synoptic gospels is given along with the accompanying text, “After entering Jerusalem, Yeshuah once again drove out the merchants and money changers.” An editorial chronology has been imposed to turn four different versions of the story into one. And since one is so different from the other three, the decision was made to imagine two scourgings at different points in history, one at the beginning of Jesus’s public ministry and again at the end. This is a possible, but hardly probable interpretation.

For the most part, these editorial insertions are kept to a minimum. So when these do occur there are all the more startling since the rest of the book adheres so closely to the original texts. Another example is Satan. He first appears as a black shroud with headlight eyes during the temptation in the wilderness and then again, editorially this time, in the same guise in the garden of Gethsemane to taunt Jesus before being transformed into a snake that’s stomped by a purple-winged angel with a green sword, presumably St. Michael.



Megillat Esther / JT Waldman, original translation, art, calligraphy; Elisha Somes, English letters.— Philadelphia : Jewish Publication Society, c2005.
172 p. : ill. ; 25 cm.
ISBN: 0827607881
Includes bibliography: p. 165-172.
1. Esther, Queen of Persia – Comic books, strips, etc. 2. Bible. O.T. Esther – Comic books, strips, etc.
222.909505

A far more daring and imaginative interpretation of scripture in a graphic novel is JT Waldman’s version of the Scroll of Esther, the story behind the Purim festival. The artist incorporates the Hebrew text into the art along with the English narration and text balloons. The drawing and composition run the gamut from horrific to voluptuous as befits a tale of Oriental court intrigue and near genocide. As the story nears its climax the reader must physically turn the story around and switch from reading left to right in English to right to left as in a Hebrew. Thus reinforcing the narrative, as the slaughter and humiliation Haman the villain plans for the Jews is instead visited upon him.

Interleaved with this rich spread are parallels to other Biblical tales, genealogical information, messianic speculations, and guest appearance by prominent prophets. Plus the appended to the end matter of the book are a bibliography, rabbinic citations, and other notes. This is a cup that runs over its brim with delights, wonders, and mysteries.


Getting graphic! : comics for kids / by Michele Gorman; with a foreword by Jeff Smith and original comic art by Jimmy Gownley.— Columbus : Linworth, c2008.

xi, 84 p. : ill. ; 26 cm.
ISBN : 978-1-58683-327-5

1.Comic books, strips, etc. – History and criticism. 2. Comic books and children.
741.509

This is a clearly written and highly useful tool for teachers, librarians, and school media specialists, a welcome and much needed annotated bibliography of 111 titles for children between the ages of four and twelve (grades K-6). Among the titles given a full review are a dozen representative of publishers’ series accompanied by a full list of the series. It includes plenty of sample illustrations, a glossary, an internet directory, and an index. It’s organized into three main lists for younger children, comic fiction, manga, and comic non-fiction. Each review ends with a suggested grade level. Plus there’s an Amelia Rules! comic introduction by Jimmy Gownley.

Red Mutiny

Red mutiny: eleven fateful days on the battleship Potemkin / by Neal Bascomb; narrated by John McDonough.— Prince Frederick: Recorded Books, p2007.

13 sound discs (15 hr.) : digital ; 4 3/4 in.

ISBN: 9781428137318

1. Bronenosets "Potemkin".
2. Russia--History--Revolution, 1905-1907.

947.083

In 1905 the Russian emperor Nicholas II was losing a war with Japan and facing massive popular resistance at home. Although he was not fond of governing, he was convinced that since God had placed him upon the throne, it was his duty to rule the empire on the principle that his father had set down, a rule of absolute autocracy. He was unprepared for the humiliating defeats his navy suffered against their better trained Japanese opponents. He was also unprepared when over a hundred thousand of his people marched on his capital in St. Petersburg in January to petition for a redress of their grievances. His guards opened fire, and hundreds were killed. It became known as “Bloody Sunday.” It began a year of unrest, industrial strikes, and simmering revolution.

In June, far to the South of St. Petersburg and Moscow, in the Black Sea port of Odessa workers were striking and carts were burning in the streets, when a requisitioning crew from the largest and best armed battleship in the navy, the Potemkin, came ashore to buy food. The market was in disarray, the officer in charge found meat hard to come by, so with the hasty approval of the ship’s doctor, he quickly purchased what was available, despite the warning of one of the crew that the meat was tainted.

The next day, back aboard the battleship, the meat began to swarm with maggots. Since it was stored on deck, hanging on racks behind a tent, each watch of the crew had a chance to view it and comment about what was about to be chopped up and tossed in their luncheon borscht. It turned out to be the final insult. The ordinary seamen were drafted into a navy run by officers that were part of the hereditary aristocracy, and they never let the peasants under their command forget it. Beatings, insults and arbitrary discipline were the norm. Among the crew, their officers were known disparagingly as “dragons.” Now crewmembers were going to be made to eat soup made from meat that they wouldn’t feed to a dog. They petitioned the captain. Captain Golikov went to inspect the meat with the ship’s doctor. They declared that it just needed to be rinsed off before it went in the soup.

After lunch Golikov was enraged when he learned that nobody ate the borscht. He ordered the entire crew of eight hundred onto the deck of the battleship. He fumed and fussed and threatened them, but without effect. But when he ordered a group of the resisters shot, and then ordered them to stand on a tarpaulin so the blood wouldn’t stain the deck, he lost first control of his ship and then his life. A member of the torpedo crew, Afanasy Matushenko, yelled at the firing squad, “Don't shoot; you can't kill your own shipmates!”

In little more than an hour Matushenko, a Ukrainian peasant with little formal education, was a member of the council commanding the ship. The officers had been shot or sent overboard, or thrown overboard and shot in the water as they tried to swim away. The Tsar’s flag was torn from the mast. In its place the red flag of revolution flew. The ship was taken with such speed and efficiency because a well organized secret network of revolutionaries had been planning a mutiny on every ship in the Black Sea for months. The rotten meat was an unexpected spark that lit the fuse of revolt.

Neal Bascomb’s narrative, smoothly read by narrator John McDonough, does an excellent job of putting the mutiny in its historical context, and clearly portraying the character of the Tsar, the Naval Officers sent to hunt down the rogue battleship, and the motives and characters of the revolutionaries who seized the ship. It’s well worth the investment of fifteen hours listening.