Are hyper-realistic graphic novels a genre? I don’t think they are, but The Other Side of Tomorrow is a graphic novel that wields a mighty hammer in knocking at the doors of book classification. It’s realistic fiction, but is so realistic, both in the manner in which the illustrations are done, and the taut nature of the story that you’ll pinch yourself in gratitude that it’s not happening to you. This is a graphic novel that entertains via drama, age-appropriate political intrigue, familial love and armchair travel. Moreover, The Other Side of Tomorrow manages to tell its story alongside one of the greatest geographic areas and humanitarian crises that middle school kids never learn about, North Korea.
Wimpy Kid is one of the 500-pound gorillas in children’s literature. It’s one of those book series that young readers feel they should read because their siblings read it, or because they’ve seen one of the dozens of entries in their library. Oliver’s Great Big Universe is cut from the same cloth as Wimpy Kid. Volcanoes Are Hot! is the second entry in this series and has placed STEM fun in the place of Wimpy Kid’s family antics. Yes, STEM-fun is a thing. Fart jokes are a natural crossover to volcanology and students avoiding bullies or hall monitors are essentially recreating Pangea on a localized scale. Oliver’s Great Big Universe: Volcanoes Are Hot! has the same degree of laughs as its simian cousin, in addition to the comic-style art and succinct text that keeps young readers locked in.
Locked in, while you can probably infer its definition, means that students focus and concentrate on the thing in front of them. They can be locked in on the study materials, locked in while they’re playing basketball or locked in to the book that they didn’t think that they’d enjoy reading. Upper elementary and middle school students will be locked in when they’re reading Oliver’s Great Big Universe: Volcanoes Are Hot!.
18 pages into the book we discover that Oliver’s friend, Sven, threw up at lunch because he ate too much cobbler, which he absolutely loves. The art shows a gaggle of students lining up to give him their cobbler, which evolves into an eating competition of sorts with the elementary school cafeteria egging him on with chants of “eat it, eat.” He’s looking sort of purple and is pushed into the puke aspect of the Venn Diagram when a classmate offers him a pickle that supposedly calms the stomach. Just like the volcano that has too much magma and pressure under it, Sven blows chunks and forever stains his formative years.
Thankfully middle school is just around the corner and incidents like that are quickly forgotten by this fickle age group. Alas, it’s not, and Olliver and Sven are forced to do other things to change their peer’s perception and hopefully put that puke into the memory hole. What brought on Olliver’s interest in volcanoes was his aunt, who appears very early in the book as a cavewoman. That’s the way she appears to him, but it’s just his active imagination because she is a volcanologist who has just spent 500 days living in a cave.
Volcanoes Are Hot is the book version of short-attention-span theater. It effortlessly entertains ages eight and up who had previously, and perhaps unconsciously, sworn off reading anything scientific for the sole purpose of entertainment. Some of those kids might have intentionally said that being the ‘smart one’ wasn’t possible or they simply bought into the fallacy that it’s cool not to be intelligent. This is for them, as well as, the kids who realize that it’s the people who don’t play the fool that will reap the rewards.
The joke-to-page ratio is something that we calculate in kidlit books. If there are multiple laughs on one page then the joke-to-page ratio is high and provides numerous reasons for young readers to stay with it. Volcanoes Are Hot! has a high joke-to-page ratio, as well as, incorporating science metaphors, STEM facts, and genuine laughs on every page. The bar for this graphic novel-eque book is high and it launches itself over each increment with aplomb. On some of the pages, the illustrations provide the laughter while others rely on its succinct and age-appropriate text to garner the giggles. When Oliver tries digging a hole to use the bathroom he realizes that it’s more challenging than expected. This causes him to “be pooped, as in tired, not like I pooped in my pants. Although honestly, it could have gone either way.” When you add some great cartoon illustrations next the already funny or ironic text it makes the book like butter to that movie popcorn that was already tasty.
There will be some elementary and middle school readers who would enjoy Oliver’s Great Big Universe: Volcanoes Are Hot!, but they’ll presume that because it’s educational that it possibly can’t be entertaining. It’s a pity that some readers will think that, because it’s not. This makes STEM accessible for those who might be scared of it, provides a humor tract for grin-less scientists, proves again the graphic novel-adverse adults that the genre is worth embracing, and gives kids a watercooler book that will up their science grade if they allow it to.
Oliver’s Great Big Universe: Volcanoes Are Hot! is by Jorge Cham and is available on Amulet Books, an imprint of Abrams Books.
What’s the difference between beast warriors, anthropomorphic insects, zombies, dinosaurs and anthropomorphic food? If you’ve played video games or appreciate the art that goes into them then you know that characters like that have a chasm of difference between them based on their size, weapons, personality, and more. Satoshi Matsuura is a video game character designer whose work is jagged, unique and really stands out when you see it. In Fantasy Characters & Creatures, An Artist’s Sourcebook, Whimsical Beasts, Anthropomorphic Monsters and More!audiences will get to see a collection of over 600 of his creations.
This is a very gay book. This is a very queer book. Wishbone wears either descriptor as its badge of honor and positions itself as the queer hybrid between A Nightmare on Elm Street and Stranger Things. There are some interesting horror angles presented in Wishbone, but this is mglit that’s about reassuring gay, queer, and trans kids that they have a place in society to be themselves. It’s about an 80/20 split on the lifestyle and interpersonal story to the horror angles. By looking at the written description on Amazon, the book is also disingenuous and looks like it’s trying to present itself from two fronts. A casual look will tell you that it’s about a kid confronting their bullies who is granted the powers of magic wishes, however just by looking at the back jacket you’ll see what the heavier ratio of the book is about.
The problem with a Paul Tobin book is that you want to read every word. That’s not really a problem per se, but you want to get to the end of it so that you can find out how all of this silliness ends. And we mean that in the fondest of ways. My Vampire vs. Your Werewolf takes a premise that elementary ages, middle school students and RPG gamers have kicked around since they were first staked or howled at the moon. The moment you mention the title your mind starts to play out how they would fight, what environment would be friendliest to each monster and how could such a battle realistically take place without attracting massive amounts of attention.
Seasons Change as the classic song from Expose goes. And while some trends in mglit might ebb and flow, the dystopian, end-of-the-world novel with a plucky, female heroine will never die. The Flicker is an entry into that genre that wants to accomplish so much but ends up tripping over its intended inclusiveness. It’s challenging to find a sympathetic or interesting character in the first 85% of the book, and the lengths that it went to in order to check off virtue signal boxes has us recalling that classic Keanu Reeves scene from Always Be My Maybe.
Do you remember a couple of years ago when Yo-Kai Watch became a semi-phenomena outside of Japan? For a moment there were a couple of the cool, elementary kids, who were down with a magical watch that allowed them to see ghosts and monsters. The Snow Woman and Other Yokai Stories From Japanis jammed with 77 short stories about ghosts, spirits, mysterious people, samurai, and a handful of recent stories that blur the line between reality, paranoia and tall tales. Japan is an ancient country with thousands of years of history that has yielded stories still woven into folklore and pop culture today. These stories survived for so long due to being handed down or told from one generation to the next. It wasn’t until modern times that these stories, as well as, folktales from other cultures, were written down.
Coal is something whose byproduct we know, yet the process of getting it from the ground is draped in mystery. We know the lights can be powered by coal, our rechargeable batteries too, but most Americans haven’t thought of the history of coal in the United States. Citizens of the United States might know that West Virginia is often synonymous with coal and is dangerous work. Yet the history of coal, involves low wages, brutal treatment of workers, a repressive means of payment, and unscrupulous owners. The Mine Wars: The Bloody Fight for Worker’s Rights in the West Virginia Coalfields tells this story that’s worthy of a mini-series.
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