In this round of microreviews, we’re focusing on feelings, from one author’s illustrated year with Seasonal Affective Disorder to the complex emotions contained with three generations of an Indian family. These books focus on the emotional landscapes of their subjects–and ultimately advocate for a world in which art, and the complex experiences and emotions it evokes, is inherently valuable.
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“Be more bold:” An Interview with Isabel Greenberg
It was our pleasure to interview award-winning graphic novelist Isabel Greenberg, a young British talent whose tales from the fictional world of Early Earth create spiritual, historical, and mythic space for women. We talked about new projects, the role that sisterhood plays in her work, and snagged a few book recommendations.
Review: Park Bench by Christophe Chaboute
Park Bench by Christophe Chaboute (Gallery 13, 2017)
Reviewed by Rebecca Valley
In April, I visited Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum in Los Angeles with my mother. It was an impulse decision – it was hot, Madame Tussaud’s was air-conditioned, and deep down my mother and I are both too vain to resist a good photo shoot. We wandered past eerily life-like figures of Snoop Dogg and Betty White into a gallery of movie sets, where I found the thing I didn’t know I was looking for – a young Tom Hanks in a khaki suit, back straight and feet slightly pigeon-toed, seated on a half-empty park bench. Continue reading
Review: One Hundred Nights of Hero by Isabel Greenberg
One Hundred Nights of Hero by Isabel Greenberg (Little, Brown and Co., 2016)
Reviewed by Rebecca Valley
Before I begin, I should admit that I am absolutely the intended audience for Isabel Greenberg’s latest graphic novel One Hundred Nights of Hero. It is a book which revolves around stories and the women who tell them, and as a poet and long-time reader currently making her living as a children’s librarian, it’s not exactly a wonder that I’d be tickled by this book. That being said, I find that the people who enjoy reading book reviews tend to be those similarly pleased by books that valorize story-telling (i.e. writers, librarians, peddlers of books in all shapes and forms). So I’ll begin, then, by saying that this is a book for story-lovers. It’s littered with tale tales, it’s characters are story-tellers. There is (fortunately) just no avoiding it. Continue reading
SNOW: Stand Still. Stay Silent by Minna Sundberg
Stand Still. Stay Silent. by Minna Sundberg (Hiveworks)
Reviewed by Rebecca Valley
Maybe it’s the current political climate in the U.S., but I’ve been reading a lot of dystopian fiction lately. I’m about halfway through Emily St. John Mandel’s post-apocalyptic novel Station Eleven, and for the past few weeks I’ve been diving deep into the archives of Minna Sunberg’s award-winning web comic Stand Still. Stay Silent. (In a funny twist of fate, Mandel takes the title of her book from a fictional graphic novel written by one of the characters, which makes my reading life feel like one strange, interwoven loop of trolls and Shakespeare and doom.) Continue reading
Recommended Reading: Diversity in YA
by Rebecca Valley
You may or may not know by now that I work during the day as a middle school librarian. Back in September, I challenged myself to read 20 young adult books before the end of 2016, and as of this morning, I completed my goal — with a comfortable two week cushion, I might add.
I work at a Title I school, and my students were one of the primary inspirations for our Droplet series on young adult and children’s literature. In my school district, about 30% of the students speak Spanish as their first language, and a huge percentage are first generation immigrants from Guatemala and Mexico. Continue reading
Review: Light by Rob Cham
Light by Rob Cham (Anino Comics, 2016)
Reviewed by Rebecca Valley
How to review a book without words? I was confronted with this dilemma when reading Rob Cham’s graphic novel Light, a comic in which two characters – both, of course, nameless – journey through the dark underworld in search of crystals capable of returning color to earth’s surface. The challenge when reviewing a work without words, or even character names, is the instability of the critique – how can you document the emotional arc of a narrative experienced through visual images alone? Continue reading
drizzle review 