MomoCon: A teen’s take on this all-age anime, manga and video games con

Our children have been going to Momocon since they were four and six. They were rabid about Pokémon for a year or two and gravitated towards board games, one of them has fallen in love with wrestling and both of them have always loved the cosplay that they see. Eight years on they were both very eager to go to MomoCon, but I wasn’t sure what would interest them the most when we got there.

As our children get older, their desire to go to MomoCon hasn’t stopped, but the things that they want to do there have changed.
Put Momocon on the calendar

 The Avengers: Heroes, Icons, Assembled is the full-package

On the surface, it’s a very simple thing that The Avengers: Heroes, Icons, Assembled does well. It takes the potentially complex plot of comic books, specifically The Avengers, and distills their existence since 1963 into something understandable, approachable and entertaining. This is a reference book-style collection of the super team’s history that all but jumps off of the pages and makes you wish that you’d been reading along with it since their inception. But that’s coming from a comic book kid who wishes that they had a time machine to go back and collect the series from when they first saw them in the bookstore. It serves as a bridge for the comic book casual, comfort food for the faithful and an example of a pop culture time capsule that’s as comfortable in a library as it is in your living room.  

The Avengers: Heroes, Icons, Assembled is encyclopedic at first, but is fun, digestible look at the superhero team in comic books.
Leisure reading, encyclopedic and ripping fun

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, a prequel that measures up to high expectations

Prequels are the sort of lazy storytelling that beget Muppet Babies. That statement can still be true, however, I’ve been watching Young Sheldon on Netflix and love that show. A movie is a different kind of beast though, and making a sequel to one of the best action films ever shouldn’t be trifled with. Mad Max: Fury Road is the movie in question and Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is the prequel that was holding the place card for an apocalyptic, gasoline-centered Muppet Babies. Our worst-case scenario of young Kermit may be the exception, rather than the rule. That’s because Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is possibly the best action movie since 2015’s Mad Max: Fury Road.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is great fun, it’s independent enough to stand alone and wields the action of Fury Road with a deeper story.
Muppet babies in the wasteland get run over

As The Seas Rise, soft eco message mixed with too much faux can do

Adults who visit an elementary school library will experience various thoughts. Look at how skinny these books are. Look at how many books are in this library. How can all of these books get the attention that they deserve? As The Seas Rise is an illustrated book with noble intentions but is five eras too late. The rise of sea level and climate change is science, it’s happening, but I would argue that some books do more to damage the greater cause than the good that it intends. For example, if this book were more informational about sunny day flooding then it would have more of a punch and immediacy. As it stands, the book melds one strong issue, a soft character portrait, and an environmental issue that’s tough for kids to comprehend into a listless illustrated story adrift in a crowded library of better books.

As The Seas Rise has noble intentions, but its soft images and mixed story leaves young readers unenthused and bored.
An eco book too far, save paper. Don’t buy it.

Are You Small?, illustrated book genius or fun, whatever you like

I’m currently teaching a high school English class and they won’t tell you that they want order, structure and something to do. Left to their own devices most of them would be content spinning their energy and creative juices wasting time on their handheld computers that can also make phone calls. Students crave order and boundaries, but they won’t tell you that. Illustrated books have their own unwritten set of rules, mores and means that they’re presented to their key audience to maximize the book’s attention. Are You Small? is the sibling to Are You Big? and hits the same great high notes, in the same manner, albeit in a key that’s smaller in stature.

Are You Small? is an illustrated book that posits to young children how small is small and a basic lesson in relativity, or it’s all just for fun.
If fun is relative, then this book is relatively

The Little Kid with the Big Green Hand, sublime fun for pre-k and up

https://amzn.to/4ajrPuqThat book is too thick for me, I can’t possibly read it all. That book is very thick, I think that it will be a great reading challenge. The Little Kid with the Big Green Hand has a fuzzy, tactile cover that makes it stand out. It’s a coming-of-age story that parallels something that every child aged five and up can understand. The book’s cover is bright, very curious, and seems like a fun, engaging read that is effortless to engage with. Any child that that picks up The Little Kid with the Big Green Hand will think of one of the five sentences as mentioned above at some point.

The Little Kid with the Big Green Hand is a very smart, funny book for pre-k readers and older. It’s also sublime, simple, odd and unlike any book they’ve seen.

Fear not the thick green book

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is solid and shows no sign of letting up

The first three Planet of the Apes movies, in this revamped series were all remarkably consistent in their quality. They were films that I personally enjoyed, in addition to achieving great commercial success. Because of that, I was concerned about Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. The negative headlines to reviews of the potentially subpar film wrote themselves in my head, An Ape Too Far, Forescore and No Apes More, There’s Nothing to Ape About This Film, and other erstwhile clickable titles that would be glib and hinted at my disappointment in the movie.

However, not since the Harry Potter movie series has a franchise produced so many films consistently, with roughly the same characters, and has continued a high level of quality and entertainment. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes is the fourth film in this series, the tenth movie overall, and stretches every conceivable positive metric forward, or doesn’t back off from its previous highs, for the most part.

Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes delivers the epic, enthralling story that you wanted, with the effects that make you believe in a world controlled by simians.
You’ll believe an ape can fly, or talk

It Watches in the Dark, shines as age-appropriate horror for ages 10 and up

This book runs, and very few books run. Books that run have that page-turner characteristic that literally makes it challenging to put down. For our money, any form of entertainment can run, and each instance is equally rare. It Watches in the Dark runs. It’s horror mglit that is age-appropriate for upper-elementary audiences, but has the smarts, tension and character development to make it interesting and enjoyable to those middle school students and older. Even the book’s cover reels in possible readers. For example, our eighth-grade student saw It Watches in the Dark by our bed and said “ooooh, when did you start reading that?”

It Watches in the Dark is age-appropriate, mglit horror that’s smart enough for older readers, but restrained enough for younger ones.
Real-time horror that’s fabulous for ages 10 and up
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