What a simple tale The Strangest Fish is. It will sound familiar to young, read-aloud audiences in elementary school, both in its setting and in its very subtle lesson. A young girl is at the fair with her family when she receives a fish who is happily unaware of the size of its plastic bag aquarium. It’s a beautiful fish that they name October, who quickly outgrows his arrangements. This all sounds familiar, the fish-out-of-water, except those who aren’t like you premise that savvy readers can detect from far away. That’s us too, but before you put this in the same tank with other, less intelligent, classy or interesting books, check out the art.
One fish, weird fish, catch my interest youThe First Cat in Space and the Soup of Doom slays sophomore curse
The First Cat in Space and the Soup of Doom takes the absurd happenings of The First Cat in Space Ate Pizza, keeps running and picks up speed. The Batman 1966 vibes in this all-age graphic novel series continue in this second book and are more established. By looking at the back cover it baits audiences by telling them that they’ll see First Cat, Moon Queen, and Loz 4000 again, but teases them by showing snippets of the action inside the book, a la, The Wild, Wild West as they went to commercials. This is a graphic novel that wallows in the excitement and giddy energy that mid-elementary through lower middle-school students can bring to a book when it’s one whets their appetite.
Insert more catThe Inventor’s Workshop, STEM-fun for potato chip and cat video kids
The potato chip and cat video test is gauging whether or not a kid will want to read a book based on just one page. Because, much like a potato chip or a cat video, you can’t eat or watch just one. Some might relate better to the M&M or slice of pizza test, but the latter is far too large for repeated snacking, isn’t it? The Inventor’s Workshop: How People and Machines Transformed Each Other is a wonderful book that crosses through reference material, a loose time travelling narrative, countless blurbs of digestible information and detailed illustrations that channel a search for a lanky, bespectacled, poofy-haired, Brit who is hiding in plain sight.
Resistence is futileSunday, meets the needs and desires of its young audiences
Hi, Daddy Mojo here and in the immortal words of Billy Mays, but wait, there’s more, there is more to Sunday. The wordplay in the text is very clever and parlays the meanings behind some of the imagery. When Martin and Maize return, the eight pages where the three of them sit on the sofa could have been a snoozefest that made readers of all ages check out the book. Instead, it sucks readers in further simply by focusing in on the details. It’s just a black hole, but I keep getting closer and closer until I can only see the closing void of space.
Haruki Murakami Manga Stories 2: a surreal graphic novel mirror
Haruki Murakami is Japan’s best-selling, living author. His books have been translated into over 50 languages, with millions of copies sold worldwide. Haruki Murakami Manga Stories 2: The Second Bakery Attack, Samsa in Love, Thailand are a curious itch. The three short stories in graphic novel form are jarring, visceral, in your face and take a moment to be absorbed. This is a graphic novel in the vein of art, with a surreal story that weaves between metaphors, allegory and absurdity without any warning.
Skybound!, a non-fiction, entrepreneurial illustrated book is easy to love
Why do we read? There’s a poster in a class that I’m teaching now that lists Great Reasons to Read. Yeah, that list might seem passé or obligatory, but for a group of high school students who would sooner watch paint dry, so long as it’s on their cell phone, they need to be reminded as to what reading can do for their ever-growing brains. Skybound! Starring Mary Myers as Carlotta, Daredevil Aeronaut and Scientist check off every one of the things listed on that list, if such a list exists for elementary school ages. Spoiler alert: that list exists and it’s the same one that’s in the high school class; it’s just that young audiences like elementary school readers need to have it presented with a little more panache, enthusiasm, and show.
Solid Gold was much more than a comebackDespicable Me 4, rote minion and baby hijinks for ages 8-13
Adding a baby to the cast of characters in a sequel is the canary of intellectual property death. The most obvious offender for us is Muppet Babies, but there have been many others. Angel, Murphy Brown, Friends are the first ones that rip off of the top of my head. And while casual fans of those shows or the movies that have hit that creative dearth might struggle to remember the specifics, they can vaguely recall that entry as the one with the baby. Despicable Me 4 is the one with the baby and lest there be anyone who didn’t suspect that’s a major plot point, there’s a baby on Gru’s back on the DVD’s cover. One of the minions is beside him, channeling its best yellow-Men-In-Black impersonation with a ray gun of sort in its gloved-yellow hand.
The sweet spot for 8-11 YO minions, but not past thatAmazing Abe, an illustrated book that’s more than niche history
Not Lincoln, Abraham Cahan, nonetheless amazing, but not as well known as the stovepipe-hat-wearing President of the United States. Amazing Abe: How Abraham Cahan’s Newspaper Gave a Voice to Jewish Immigrants could be a tough sell to elementary age audiences. It could be, but it overcomes the non-fiction, biography resistance to unknown figures that those ages have by making the book accessible in its brief text that highlights enough of Cahan’s interesting life to make kids want to care. Amazing Abe also detailed art, but not so much so that it looks real, it’s right in the area encompassing the kind that clever kids want to see in their illustrated books.
It follows the template for making unknown figures interesting