Sanity & Tallulah
by Molly Brooks
Disney-Hyperion, $21.99 hardcover, $12.99 paperback
Ages 8-12

“The future is female,” they say, and nothing demonstrates that better than a science fiction adventure about two smart, daring girls living on a space station.

Super-creative Sanity has genetically engineered a three-headed kitten named “Princess Sparkle, Destroyer of Worlds”. Having a pet is a rule violation in such a tightly controlled environment, particularly one that’s a science experiment created using untested equipment, and Tallulah’s mother, the senior scientist on the station, grounds them both when she finds out. “Maybe next time you’ll think twice before abetting mad science,” she declares to her daughter.

Then the cat gets loose at the same time various outages and problems start occurring in core systems. The girls need to find the pet to figure out whether she’s to blame.

Sanity & Tallulah is the best kind of science fiction, full of imaginative ideas and crazy possibilities but fundamentally focused on characters and relationships. This is a diverse future centered on family, but Brooks doesn’t lose sight of the classic adventure structure, where two girls use their determination, smarts, and bravery to save their home.

The color scheme is noticeably distinctive. The palette is midnight blue (good for space), a reddish clay color (which also lightens to pink — together they make dark and pale skin tones), and grey (for technology). They add up to a future world that feels grounded and lived-in. It’s not super-shiny high-tech, but patched together and plausible.

There are times when it can be a little difficult to follow the art. This is Brooks’ first graphic novel, so it’s not surprising that occasionally the dialogue helps in describing what we’re supposed to be seeing, as when the girls discuss how the cat escaped or during the big cliffhanger.

It’s reassuring, though, to see Sanity praised for her genius. (Tallulah is mostly there for energy and enthusiasm.) When one character starts muttering, “That girl is too clever for her own good,” Dr. Vega, Tallulah’s mother, responds, “she’s a perfectly fine amount of clever, so long as she’s properly supervised.” Even when the girls are caught, she intersperses warning and disciplining them with concern for their safety and treating their bumps and bruises. And the young women are listened to, with their ideas given fair consideration.

A lot happens in this story, with plenty of possibility in the environment for more what ifs and future adventures. It’s a satisfying, long-lasting read with some terrific role models.

I hadn’t realized that Witch Boy was a planned series. But sometimes the sequel is better than the first.

The Hidden Witch
By Molly Knox Ostertag.
Graphix, October 2018
Grades 3 and up

In Witch Boy, Aster had to fight for the freedom to learn how to be a Witch, a role usually reserved for the women of his family. He also battled his evil great-uncle Mikasi. But now his grandmother offers him extra tutoring in exchange for helping his uncle.

In the meantime, Charlie, Aster’s non-magical friend, is being shadowed by a fetch, a magical shadow that is cruel. Charlie doesn’t realize it’s the new student, a girl she attempted to befriend. Aster is the one who sees and understands what is going on and he wants to help her, but he doesn’t know enough. So, he turns to his grandmother who tells him, she’ll do it if he helps Mikasi.

This is an exciting magical story. While the first volume had undertones of gender role and even gender identity, the messages are subtler and typical for this age group. Bad people can change. Give people a chance. Kindness.

The artwork has rich luscious colors that once again create the mood for this book: Dark, moody colors for the scenes with Mikasi and light colors for when Aster visits with Charlie or interacts with her in the nonmagical side of town.

If you haven’t added the first volume to your collection, do it now and then go read volume 2. It’s even better!

Science Comics: Polar Bears: Survival on the Ice
Written by Jason Viola, Illustrated by Zack Giallongo
First Second, $19.99 (hardcover), $12.99 (paperback)
Grades 4-8

The latest installment of First Second’s excellent non-fiction graphic novel series dives deep into the life of one of the world’s most distinctive animals.

Anik and Ila are sibling polar bear cubs. As they spat with each other and follow Mama around the Arctic, the reader learns in great detail the nature of life in such a harsh environment. Science Comics: Polar Bears covers types of ice, what makes polar bears mammals, how they swim, and the strategies they use for hunting. There’s also information on the unique anatomy that allows polar bears to survive in such an extreme setting and the life cycle of Arctic animals, from algae through krill to seals, the bear’s preferred meal.

Viola doesn’t shy away from the dangers and harsh conditions of this life, with mentions of why the cubs don’t know their father — he might kill and eat them — or showing the results of a seal hunt, with carcasses and bloody muzzles. This life is intense, but there’s also emphasis on the need for patience, stillness, and quiet.

Giallongo has a fluid, slightly exaggerated style that wonderfully captures the power and grace of these animals. The active cubs are constantly in motion, keeping the reader interested and giving every panel something new to see. They have a ton of personality, and the informative bits are kept visually interesting with pop culture references, like a fast food menu or a wifi signal indicator.

As the cubs contemplate growing up, they’re told about how they’ll need to fight, the mating process, building a birthing den, and interactions with humans. Later, things turn melancholy, as the effects of pollution are detailed, and a section covers how climate change is reducing the ice the polar bears need to survive.

As with other Science Comics, the volume concludes with a glossary, background notes, and reference reading. With its deep dive and rough conditions, Polar Bears: Survival on the Ice isn’t for everyone — teachers or parents may wish to be prepared to discuss some of the more violent or discouraging elements with young readers — but it’s a fascinating collection of facts about the biology and survival of a unique mammal.

The owners of an amusement park at a seaside resort hopes a new Ferris wheel will revive the local businesses, but no tourist attractions and freak shows can compete with real-life monsters! Can Scooby and the Mystery, Inc. gang capture a “Boardwalk Vampire”?

The comic will be available on December 19. Enjoy!

The List:

ALBATROSS FUNNYBOOKS
Mega Ghost #1 (Of 5)(Cover A Gideon Kendall), $3.99  **Weekly Pick**

ARCHIE COMIC PUBLICATIONS
Archie And Me Comics Digest #13, $6.99
Archie Christmas Spectacular #1, $2.99

BOOM! STUDIOS
Adventure Time Season 11 #3 (Cover A Jorge Corona), $3.99
By Night #6 (Of 12)(Cover A Christine Larsen), $3.99
Hex Vet Witches In Training Volume 1 GN, $8.99  **Weekly Pick**
Saban’s Go Go Power Rangers #15 (Cover A Dan Mora), $3.99

CHARMZ
Melowy Volume 2 The Fashion Club Of Colors GN, $12.99

IDW PUBLISHING
Disney Comics And Stories #2 (Cover A Paolo Campinoti), $5.99
DuckTales #15 (Cover A Marco Ghiglione & Cristina Stella), $3.99
Mickey And Donald Christmas Parade #4 (Cover A Ulrich Schroeder & Daan Jippes), $6.99
My Little Pony Nightmare Knights #3 (Cover A Tony Fleecs), $3.99

MARVEL COMICS
Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #39 (Cover A Erica Henderson), $3.99

TITAN COMICS
Minions Viva Le Boss #2 (Cover A Renaud Collin), $3.99

VIZ MEDIA
Pokemon The Movie I Choose You GN, $14.99
Splatoon Manga Volume 5 GN, $9.99

The Picks:

Mega Ghost #1 – Albatross Funnybooks introduces a new junior occultist investigator for kids to follow. Martin Magus lives in the very haunted city of Dunwich Heights, where tentacles are rumored to come out of the sewers and mysterious lights appear in the sky. When he goes out to investigate Darkgable Manor, he finds a bewitched ring that releases three spirits, Yorick, Balthazar and Elsa the Hell Monkey. It also gives him the power to summon Megaghost, a giant supernatural robot that is sworn to defend the world against things the creepy things that go bump in the night. And with the Kool Kult Kids Magic Club running around, there are a lot of creepy things to defend Dunwich Heights, and maybe even the world, from! This title may be a little late for Halloween, but it’s perfect for a long, spooky, winter night.

Hex Vet Witches In Training Volume 1 GN – Boom! Studios journeys into the supernatural world of magical creature care. Annette “Nan” Artifice and Clarion Wellspring are apprentice veterinarian witches studying under Dr. Cornelia Talon, caring for different magical creatures from pygmy phoenixes to bugbears. Opposites personality-wise, they must learn to work together when a rabbit with strange eyes stumbles into the clinic while Dr. Talon and the Nurse are away on a call, threatening the welfare of the other patients. This original graphic novel is a fun story with cute art and themes about acceptance and helping animals, that readers of all ages will enjoy.

Images © Albatross Funnybooks and Boom! Studios respectively.

Shazam! #1
Writer: Geoff Johns
Artists: Dale Eaglesham, Mayo “Sen” Naito and Mike Atiyeh
DC Comics; $4.99
Rated T for Teen

DC Comics is launching a new, ongoing series starring the Superhero Formerly Known As Captain Marvel, their first since the young reader focused 2008-2010 Billy Batson & The Magic of Shazam! The reason for the timing is fairly evident: In April of next year, Warner Bros will release the long-in-development Shazam feature film. This first issue isn’t necessarily an ideal first issue, given that after 28 pages we aren’t even told the names of the family of six superheroes, but then one imagines the collected trade paperback should be available around the time the movie opens. And Shazam! #1 does at least accomplish the bare minimum required of a first issue of a new serial series: It gives readers enough to decide if they want to read #2 or not.

Answering for myself, I’m going to go with yes, I do—even if I might wait a few months until the story arc is collected, given the pacing and the heftier-than-average price tag. Kids may decide differently.

Writer Geoff Johns, an evident fan of the Captain Marvel/Shazam franchise, does a decent job of striking the right note between scripting this issue as if it is the first one someone might read and continuing the story he had written for a back-up feature in Justice League. (That 2012-2013 strip has since been collected as Shazam! Vol. 1; as the evident basis of the upcoming film, it’s probably one of the better places to point curious preteen and teenage readers.) That story told a new version of the origin of Golden Age superhero Captain Marvel, who therein used his magic word “Shazam!” for a name since Marvel Comics has spent a few decades squatting on his original moniker. Bitter, street-wise teenage orphan Billy Batson stumbles upon a magical subway station that transports him to The Rock of Eternity, where a dying wizard gives him the word that can transform him into a mighty, Superman-like champion who is devoted to preserving and protecting magic itself.

By the end of the story, Billy was able to share his power with the other five adopted kids he was living with, transforming each of them into a similarly mighty caped hero with a lightning bolt on his or her chest. While Billy’s alter-ego went by the name Shazam in that series, we never did learn what Freddy and Mary—the one-time alter-egos of Captain Marvel Jr. and Mary Marvel, who probably won’t use those names for the same reasons Captain Marvel is no longer “Captain Marvel”—are going to go by, nor what their siblings Pedro, Eugene and Darla will adopt as their hero names.

Here Billy and Freddy’s class are on a field trip to The Museum of The American Revolution in their hometown of Philadelphia when masked gunmen attempt a robbery. Billy transforms to save the day, but not before his five siblings all appear to lend a hand/be introduced. Once home, the kids have dinner with their adopted parents, and then sneak off to explore The Rock of Eternity, which they’ve been treating as something of a secret clubhouse. This being a monthly comic, a pair of extremely dramatic things happen, just as the story ends for the issue.

There’s an eight-page back-up feature telling the story of how Mary came to live with the Vasquez family, which is an awful lot darker than one might expect—and perhaps the main reason this gets a “T for Teen” rather than “E for Everybody” rating—and how she first met and befriended Freddy. It also seems to contain the origin of—or at least an Easter egg reference to—a new version of Hoppy, The Marvel Bunny, a funny animal answer to Captain Marvel from back in his 1940s peak of popularity.

Johns’ preceding “Shazam!” story was drawn by his frequent collaborator Gary Frank, but his artist on this new series is Dale Eaglesham. He’s a pretty perfect choice in that he has a very realistic style similar to that of Frank, but he uses fewer lines, and his work thus has a cleaner look and less gritty feel than Frank’s often does. Eaglesham also tends to slightly over-exaggerate characters’ postures and emotions, resulting in an effect that suggests a superhero comic version of Norman Rockwell. I wouldn’t have thought he would have fit the character as well as he ultimately does; if not the ideal Captain Marvel/Shazam artist, Eaglesham is definitely pretty much perfect for Johns’ Shazam story.

The back-up story’s artwork, by Mayo “Sen” Naito, is a sharp departure from Eaglesham as well as Frank, featuring wide-eyed, big-headed moppet characters, with anime-like simplicity and lighting in coloration. It makes the allusions to child abuse—all coming in dialogue balloons emanating from somewhere off-panel—seem all the scarier, but offers an interesting suggestion on what Shazam! could have looked like with a different artist working in a wholly new style.

It’s always difficult to predict where a series will go based on the first issue alone, but Johns’ ambition for the title seems to be something along the lines of Harry Potter-meets-Superman, with a focus on the family elements of the character. That’s definitely marketable. Here’s hoping the execution meets that ambition going forward.

Hex Vet: Witches in Training
by Sam Davies
KaBoom! (Boom! Studios), $8.99
Grades 3-6

Combine apprentices, magic, and caring for animals, and you have Hex Vet: Witches in Training.

Clarion and Annette are aspiring veterinarians for supernatural creatures. Clarion is cheery and good-hearted, while Annette comes from a family with a scary reputation, and the town gossip has made her grumpy.

Clarion is sent to clear a bugbear out of the storage room, while Annette has to work reception. When a strange rabbit with magical eyes appears at the office, while the supervising vet and her nurse are out on a call, the two girls have to work together to protect their patients.

The simple lines and shapes are reminiscent of the cartoon-styled art so popular these days. The lessons are simple but powerful: appearances can be deceiving, and kindness will be repaid. This is a quick, lightweight read that older audiences will find predictable, particularly once the lengthy concluding action sequence starts, but there’s plenty of potential here for future world-building, spurring young imaginations.

After the story, there’s a section showing the artist’s process of page construction, which also encourages readers to make their own stories.

This is my 17th year in middle school. Sure, I should probably graduate, but I do like the age a lot. It makes work exciting most days. When I read certain books, I just feel like the author (artist) has captured what goes on in a given day. The Berrybrook Middle School series just gets the age. It’s like Chmakova is like me—she never left middle school.

Crush
By Svetlana Chmakova
Yen Press
Rated A – All Ages
Grades 5 and Up

If you were to pass Jorge Ruiz on the street or in the hall, you would assume he had been held back. He’s big. He’s tough looking. But in reality, Jorge is sweet and gentle and all about keeping the peace. He’s not the bully. He’s the kid who protects you from them. He uses his size and the fact that people are afraid of him for good rather than evil.

Though he has his two best friends, Liv and Garrett, Jorge of late realizes he’s crushing on Jazmine. He gets tongue-tied whenever he is around her, but it doesn’t matter because Jazmine is already dating someone else. This is middle school, though, and no one stays a couple for very long. When the opportunity arises to start a relationship with Jazmine, it takes a while for Jorge to use it.

The story has many parts to it, without being overly complicated. Jorge and Jazmine do become a couple, but Garrett, who is trying to fit in with the jock crowd, makes some bad choices that affect their relationship. There’s also a social media episode that is timely for today’s youth.

Chmakova really hits all the nails on the head. She created a captivating story with warm and likeable characters (and some characters you really don’t want to like). While the situations are exaggerated for the sake of fiction, it works! There is a diverse cast of characters. The soft color tones and manga style artwork enhance the exciting read.

Make sure to add this to your shelf. It’s a must have—and one of our picks for the top ten graphic novels of 2018!