Peculiar Woods: The Ancient Underwater City is a graphic novel by Andres J. Colmenares that’s the brother from another mother of Adventure Time. That isn’t 100% correct, let me break that down a little bit. Peculiar Woods is a much more kid-friendly version of that sense of quirky sense of humor and style of animation that television shows and comic books exhibit. Peculiar Woods is the start of a graphic novel series that’s weird enough to be cool for middle school but has the reading level appropriate for some third-grade students. It’s that mystical all-age graphic novel that makes the older kids enjoy it due to its content, and also allows the younger readers to be able to understand it.
That isn’t 100% accurate, either, but it’s rather close. There are allusions, bits of humor or other unsaid, but implied things that are very funny, yet those mid-elementary ages won’t comprehend them quite yet. For example, there’s the understated fear that an anthropomorphic wooden chair would have when it sees a group of small beavers swimming towards it. One of the main villains in The Ancient Underwater City is an anthropomorphic clothes washer, but one of the main heroes is a blanket that has been brought to life. It moves around without assistance, has eyes and a personality, displays heroic actions, and is a friend to most.
Peculiar Woods is a gentle graphic novel that’s not weak. If older readers were to briefly look at the art then they’ll notice that the characters are rounded, which they might associate with something akin to elementary school libraries. However, when those same people read the dialogue and combine that with the illustrations they’ll discover the intelligence and the absurd humor within this all-age graphic novel. The all-age qualifier is challenging to achieve because if it’s too hip for one audience then the other one might not get the humor or it’s something that’s not appropriate.
The Ancient Underwater City threads that needle perfectly and combines everything into a package that’s mysterious, sublime, surreal, laugh-out-loud funny, and weird. Young readers want something weird, and if said oddity can translate to boys or girls equally then so much the better.
Iggie is a young boy who is going to live with his aunt. His mother is driving him there on a warm autumn day. She loves Iggie very much and had told him since he was a young child that he was to refer to his aunt as his mom. It’s obviously a situation born out of love, but also a fair degree of mystery. Once they arrive, Jill welcomes him but is also reminded that his mother made him promise never to venture out into the woods. However, kids being kids, he grabs a flashlight during the first night there and goes exploring outside.
He momentarily gets lost but is aided by a giant talking rock. Once he gets back inside the house a blue blanket, that looks as much like a shroud as it does a little boy, starts roaming around. That is followed by a surly, wooden chair, which also looks a bit like a piece of toast, who starts talking to Iggie. The chair issues a dire warning that some of the household objects will come to life.
The thing that young audiences will enjoy about Peculiar Woods is that there aren’t many lines of dialogue. It is not a wordless graphic novel, but there’s a scarcity of words that will make it welcoming to younger readers. Those same ages will also love the fact that older kids will be seen reading it, and that it resembles some of the classic graphic novels that they’ve seen in libraries. Some fourth or fifth graders will get the jokes, a couple will get all of them, and every middle school student will get the humor and consider this comfort reading food. It’s the fact that Peculiar Woods is appropriate for all of them, and even slightly younger, that makes this the all-age graphic novel manna that those kids don’t know that they need.
Peculiar Woods: The Ancient Underwater City is by Andres J. Colmenares and is available on Andrews McMeel Publishing, distributed by Simon & Schuster.
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