Category Archives: books

Novelist Peng Shepherd pulls a nice trick with her book – The Cartographers — in that she maintains elements of mystery and surprise in a book that has a single old map at the center of the story. Even as a lover of maps, I didn’t think a single map could fuel an entire story. But here, it does.

And I won’t give the story away, but The Cartographers is an engaging tale that begins with a suspicious death, the discovery of an old road map with an odd marking, and a threading of a deep backstory into the present, all the while keeping a focus on Nell, the main character at the heart of the story. Nell’s father’s death is the event that sparks the tale, but it is also her search for her mother, or a memory of her mother, that propels the plot.

There are plenty of twists and turns, and the writing keeps it all moving forward. Focusing in on a collection of characters with a love of maps — from the old, dusty troves of ancient maps to a modern, algorithmic software program — Shepherd allows us to see how powerful maps can be on our imagination, and our perceptions of reality (or misperceptions, too).

It would give the main story away to share Peng Shepherd’s Author’s Notes at the end of the book, but the story she tells there of a real event that inspired her thinking about this fictional story is really quite fascinating — it’s a story of a map that signaled one thing, only to lead to something else altogether, where the map became a path forward in a place that was never real, until it was.

The Cartographers was a fun, lively read.

Peace (off the edge),
Kevin

It’s nice to see a female hero in the graphic novels for middle school readers. This first book in the 5 World series (which I only found out about through a Scholastic Book order) is a satisfying read on many levels. 5 Worlds: The Sand Warrior is a fast-paced adventure in which our protagonist — Oona Lee — must summon powers she does not know she has in order to start the process to save the worlds.

The story is rather complicated in a summary retelling, but I was not confused during the reading of it (except for all of the odd names of planets and such). While a familiar story arc ensues, I still was rooting for Oona Lee and her friends, and even when I figured out the twist facing her (it has to do with family), I thought the writers (lots of them, apparently) pulled it off quite nicely.

The concept of sand as power, and of how some, like Oona Lee, can summon the sand as magic, and then how that magic can transform a sand dancer into a sand warrior, worked just fine. I appreciated, too, the world building here, and the variety of strange characters — all with important back stories that you can see might unfold in later chapters of the tale.

This book would appeal to girls and boys, in equal measure, and that shows the power of a good graphic novel, where the colorful art matches perfectly with the story on the pages. I’m looking forward to where the story goes from here — there are now five books in the series, I see.

Peace (in magic and sand),
Kevin

I suggest it’s best to read through Randall Munroe’s latest collection of “serious scientific answers to absurd hypothetical questions” slowly, allowing the questions and the answers, and the funny comic illustrated quips, to settle in with you in his latest book, entitled What If? 2.

The science is deep (he worked for NASA as a roboticist, and he knows his science) but so is the funny, and if you know Munroe’s distinct style from either his XKCD comics or his other books, you know he balances the deep science and math thinking with an incredible array of bizarre ideas, in this case, generated by his readers. (The first What If? book was great, too, as are his other collections.)

The questions from kids here are the best, such as the opener here from a five year old: What would happen if the Solar System was filled with soup? Near the end, another question from a seven year old: How many snowflakes would it take to cover the world in six feet of snow? Munroe answers those questions and dozens more, too, and all are entertaining and interesting and educational.

His writing style and writing voice is something intriguing — he certainly knows his science but his ability to add the comic aside while celebrating the question (for the most part) is very effective. His signature stick people doodles show how far you can go with stick figures, too, and each answer has its collection of small comics that will leave you chuckling while also thinking.

Peace (and questions to ponder),
Kevin

With no kids in my house under 18, it’s kind of odd that I still find pleasure in sitting and reading new installments of Jeff Kinney’s Diary Of A Wimpy Kid, but I do. It’s not deep literature. But it is fun.

The latest book, which just came out, is called Diper Overlode, and the focus is less on Greg and more on his older brother, Roderick, and his desire for fame and fortune with his hard rock band: Loded Diper.

As an amateur musician, I giggled quite a bit here, as the band’s antics to get a gig, to play at a Battle of the Bands, to ask for advice from an aging rocker, to getting set up for a show only to find some equipment missing, to not getting paid after playing a gig because you didn’t read the fine print, to trying to find practice space, to lugging the heavy equipment around …. those all ring pretty true to me.

I even texted some of the hilarious cartoons in the book to my bandmates, who enjoyed the sharing.

I don’t know how many more years Kinney can keep this up, and certainly interest in his books has waned over time in my sixth grade classroom, but I am still enjoying his sense of humor each fall, when the new book arrives and I read the story of Greg and his friends and family in an afternoon or two (and then, bring the book to my classroom for any interested students to read).

Seventeen books in, and I remain a fan.

Peace (and rock and roll),
Kevin

The book is a game, and the game is afoot!

Jason Shiga, the comic creator whose Meanwhile interactive comic book a few years back amazed me and my sons for its innovative use of a choose-your-own-story theme (complete with more than 3,800 choice possibilities), has a new book (and a new series, it seems) that builds on the concept that was in Meanwhile (which Shiga later turned into an app built on the concept of the Infinite Canvas idea of Scott McCloud).

Leviathan: AdventureGame Comics is a non-linear tour of story that is wrapped up in a sort of game, where the reader makes choices by following the “tubes” that lead to different pages in the book. Sometimes, Shiga leaves places for the reader to choose their own page, leaping back into the story at random points. Some pages have multiple story lines grouped together, with “tubes” running in different directions. Some pages are maps, with streets that lead to other sections of the book.

You never know what you’re going to land on when you turn to a page.

Here’s the book blurb:

Leviathan is set in a medieval coastal village, where residents live in fear of a giant sea creature. Your goal as a reader is simple: defeat the Leviathan! As you wander through the open world, the town’s backstory is revealed. You can attempt to visit the library to try and learn why the Leviathan destroyed it years ago. You can stop by the castle to discover the town was once riddled with crime and theft—and how that’s stopped as the Leviathan will wreak havoc on the town for the smallest misdeeds. If you’re lucky, you may find your way to the old wizard who may possess the one thing that could keep the Leviathan at bay. But not everything is as it appears in this village. Can you discover the secrets and stop the Leviathan before it’s too late?

I’ve been spending time wandering the book, zipping through the pages, following the adventures but have yet to find the ending point. I suspect, for many fans of Interactive Fiction, the end is not the point, anyway — it’s the journey that counts.

I could see middle school readers, in particular, enjoying Shiga’s new book (and Meanwhile, too) and its creative use of comic panels and narrative tubing makes for a very different kind of reading experience.

Here is Shiga, talking about the book (I can’t even begin to fathom how he planned it out and put it all together!):

Peace (connecting the tubes),
Kevin