Regular readers here (hi, you!) know that I am reading the Gregor the Overlander series by Suzanne Collins with my youngest son. We have just finished up the fourth book — Gregor and the Marks of Secret — and are now starting the final book in the series, Gregor and the Code of Claw. The Marks of Secret has been the darkest of the bunch, no doubt about it. A quick summary of the series: Gregor is a 12 year old boy who falls through a grate in New York City, finds an entire underworld of humans and creatures below the surface, and is hailed (and feared) as the Warrior of various prophecies carved into a wall.

The rats emerge as the clear nemesis in this fourth book. Collins also alludes to the Holocaust in no uncertain terms, as the rats (the gnawers) are driving the mice (the nibblers) to their death by forcing them into a volcanic area known as the Firelands where the poisonous gasses are killing the mice by the hundreds. Gregor and his friends are on a mission to the stop the rats, and save the mice. There is no resolution of that storyline in the fourth book, as Collins is clearly setting up a confrontational plot line for the end of the series.

I think I mentioned last book: I am ready to leave the Underland, but my son isn’t, so I am staying with it. The writing is fine, and Collins does a decent job with character development, but the dark overtones of the setting and story weigh on me as a reader.  The death of characters in each book is sad. And although the book has not crossed any lines for the young ears of my son, I worry about it. He seems fine, though, and is rooting on Gregor and the good guys with all of the enthusiasm of a good listener/reader. And so, I keep going.

Peace (in the overland),
Kevin

This upcoming graphic novel from First Second Publishing provides an alternative look at the early days of The Beatles. Told mostly through the experiences of photographer Astrid Kirchherr and her love affair with the so-called “fifth Beatle” Stuart Sutcliffe, Baby’s in Black by Arne Bellstorf brings us into the club scene of Germany where the future pop stars of the world would begin to hone their skills. Sutcliffe came on as a bass player at the invitation of his friend, John Lennon, but he really wanted to be an artist.

Kirchherr would help him find his muse in the time before his early death, which was probably due to some brain hemorrhage (the exact cause was never fully determined). Strains of the cover songs that The Beatles were playing filter in and out of this love story, told entirely in black and white graphic illustrations. There’s a sort of melancholy feel to the story, as Sutcliffe is tired of playing music, drawn into his love for Kirchherr (a photographer who tastes fame herself with her images of the band), and ragged from an unknown illness that eventually takes his life.

Most of us music fans know parts of this story from the Lore of The Beatles, but Bellstorf does a nice job of keeping the graphic novel lens on Kirchherr, and we see German youth through her interactions with her friends, one of whom is a diehard fan of The Beatles who drags as many friends as he can to the bars to see them play.

I have a friend my band who is a crazy Beatles fan. I’ve passed this one along to him and he was very interested. He even knew who he was going to pass along to once he was done with ut. (It looks like the graphic novel gets published sometime in May, by the way.)

Peace (in the music),
Kevin

The blood of American Tall Tales runs thick throughout this first book of a young adult series called The Clockwork Dark, which centers on the adventures of a 12-year-old boy, Ray, and his new magical friends who must battle an evil creature who seeks to destroy .. the world? Well, it wasn’t exactly always clear to me what the GOG wanted to do, to be honest, (nor why he needed a Siren to do it). While I was drawn in by the use of tall tales (particularly the fable of John Henry, and his son, and the nine pound magical hammer from which the book gets its name), I kept losing track of the story and the characters.

(And I appreciated the author’s notes at the end of the novel, as writer John Claude Bemis explained how he came up with the idea for the series after singing the traditional song about John Henry, and wanting to make a story that did not use European-centered themes of knights and quests, but one that tapped into Americana.)

I kept reading The Nine Pound Hammer, though, because I wanted to like the story (it helps that Bemis is a former teacher), and I would get rewarded at times with action and suspense, and interesting characters. It just felt unfocused and muddled one time too many for me. I wanted to be more centered on the John Henry angle, and I didn’t always get that. Darn it. (And the cover is so intriguing).

I don’t expect to keep reading the series, but maybe I will find a reader in my class who will be drawn in by the legend of Tall Tales and the sense of adventure.

Peace (in the hammer-time),
Kevin