Donner Dinner Party, Bigger & Badder Edition, the size the book deserves

Sometimes when I read I curse my middle-aged eyesight. I do that especially when I read any of the books in Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales book series. As a graphic novel by any measurable barometer that series is outstanding for those upper-elementary school readers and up. It’s one of those series where the ‘and up’ qualifier is especially apt. If I were just reading them I would enjoy them as much from an entertainment perspective, as much as the educator in me likes them for the non-fiction stories they tell. Donner Dinner Party, A Pioneer Tale, Bigger & Badder Edition is a great example of taking something great and improving upon it.

Each book in the Hazardous Tales series that we’ve read are all great. They’re non-fiction, lovingly detailed, and weave in humor on every page to offset the drama or add to the story. All of the books, up until this Bigger & Badder Edition of Donner Dinner Party, have also had frustratingly small font. They’ve been great, don’t get me wrong, but the stories that you were reading felt like they needed to be on a bigger canvas.

Is my vision that bad or are the pictures just that small? That’s what I was thinking to myself as I read Major Impossible, Lafayette, The Underground Abductor, or any of Hale’s other books. I just wish that these books were a little bit bigger, my internal voice continued to say.

Apparently, many other people had these internal voices and the folks at Amulet Books have heard them. If you’re a fan of Nathan Hale’s books and saw that Donner Dinner Party was being released again it’s not just a cash grab with minor tweaks or changes. This version as the Bigger & Badder Edition infers is approximately 40% bigger than the Hazardous Tales books you’re used to seeing.

Put away the magnifying glass and enjoy Donner Dinner Party at your leisure. This was our first time reading his 2013 release and it has the same feel, educational elements, style of illustrations, and humor that we’ve enjoyed in the rest of his books. Given the morose topic of the Donner Party, the black humor that makes his books such a treat is on full display here. It’s age-appropriate gallows humor that some kids might feel odd about laughing at, but will quickly understand the jokes and jump into its vibe without any issue.

The book also handles the more sensitive issues that were happening in 1846 also, namely the Indians and their involvement in the story. If this is your first Hazardous Tales book you’ll be amazed at how Nathan Hale manages to make history so engaging, real, educational (but don’t tell readers in middle school that), and fun. These are graphic novels that middle school kids need to read if they think that non-fiction is something that they don’t like. I’m a firm believer in the fact that readers of any age want to, and can read non-fiction if it’s packaged in the right form. For those graphic novel readers, the Hazardous Tales series is an excellent place to dazzle those social studies teachers who think that nothing good can come from comic books or graphic novels.

This Bigger & Badder Edition of Donner Dinner Party also has some added pages that the original release didn’t have. There are some real photographs from the modern-day location, as well as photos of the equipment and people that made the infamous crossing.

Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales Donner Dinner Party, A Pioneer Tale, Bigger & Badder Edition is by Nathan Hale and available on Amulet Books, an imprint of Abrams Books.

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