Featured Post - Summer Reading 2014 The Return of Zita the Spacegirl

In honor of the tenth anniversary of First Second Books, I am featuring some previous posts about their titles.

The folks at First Second Books generously sent me a review copy of Zita's third adventure and also allowed me to ask creator Ben Hatke some questions. Here are the Q&A with Ben:

1. What was your inspiration for the story line (either of this latest adventure, or the entire Zita story in general)? And related to that, why did you choose to have a female protagonist?

The original inspiration for this latest Zita adventure was just the idea of paying homage to my favorite escape and heist stories -- like Shawshank Redemption or The Great Escape. There's still a bit of that in what the story became, but I feel like it grew from there.

And why a female protagonist? Adventurous girls tend to be particularly easy characters for me to write because I grew up with two confident and adventurous sisters and now I have four very adventurous daughters of my own. I'm used to watching girls take center stage in their own narratives.

2. Have you always wanted to be a writer and artist? Is that why you chose graphic novels, so you could create both text and illustrations?

I've gone through phases where I wanted to do different things -usually travel and adventure oriented jobs, but telling stories and making art was always there in my heart, always something I wanted to do.

I like telling stories in different formats, picture books in particular, but graphic novels are one of my favorite formats because the text and the illustrations are working so closely together. They exist in the same space. It's also a bit like making your own movie but with an unlimited special effects budget. 

3. Where do you work - office, studio, at home, at a cafe, in the park?

Most of the time I work at home in my little studio (which is really just one side of my bedroom). I play music and use headphones a lot because, as I mentioned earlier, I have four daughters and they can be pretty distracting during the day. We live in a busy house.

When I'm just writing I do sometimes like to go to a cafe. It's important to get out sometimes.

4. What time of day do you prefer to work/are you the most productive? 

Mornings are best for business-y stuff like answering emails and updating my blog, and then at about midmorning I try to switch over to working on the books. That would be writing, drawing or coloring, depending on where I am in the project. 

I take at least one walk every day to work out creative problems and I also try to make sure I schedule a little bit of "notebook time" into every day. "Notebook time" is when I just open my current sketchbook/notebook and let my mind draw up whatever ideas it wants to. This tends to work out best in the morning to get the creative juices going.

5. Do you have a specific age range in mind when you begin a project, or do you let the story decide who the audience will be?

Story is king. My first goal is always to tell a good story. Then it kind of settles into an age range, but I always hope that people of all ages will enjoy my books -- that everyone will find something to take away.

A BIG thank-you to Ben Hatke for taking the time to answer these questions and to Gina at First Second Books for all her help. To find out more about Ben and his projects, check out his blog. 

Summer Reading 2014 Cinderella Stays Late (Grimmtastic Girls, #1)

Imagine a place called Grimmlandia where all the characters from fairy tales, nursery rhymes, and other famous stories have been gathered by the Brothers Grimm for their safety. In this land there is Grimm Academy, and Cinderella (Cinda to her friends), is arriving for her first day at the school. Of course, the stepsisters have taken off with the family coach and left her to walk to school. She finally arrives at lunchtime, having missed her first three classes of the day. Cinda had hoped that the "Steps" would be busy with their friends and ignore her, but they are up to their old tricks - trying to get her into trouble and expelled from school. There are good things about the academy. My favorite is the library where Mother Goose and her helpers keep track of all the magical books and items. Cinda and her new friends (Red Riding Hood, Snow White, and Rapunzel), check out shoes and gowns from the library to wear to the ball thrown in honor of Prince Awesome's arrival at the academy. There's also masketball - which is like our basketball, but the players wear masks to conceal their identities and the hoops move around to avoid the ball. Just imagine a school where Rumpelstiltskin is principal and Humpty Dumpty is one of the teachers. Sounds "grimmazing"! 

This is a great series for readers who enjoy E.D. Baker's Frog Princess books, the Goddess Girls series (by these same authors), or Buckley's Sisters Grimm. I won an autographed copy in a giveaway on The Children's Book Review (http://www.thechildrensbookreview.com/).

Summer Reading 2014 28 Tricks for a Fearless Grade 6

I laughed out loud so much that I got teary-eyed reading this book. Dave Davidson and his friends miss their sweet teacher, Ms. Samson, from fifth grade. This year they have Mr. Papadakis, who is also in a punk rock band and spends most of his time on his cell phone. Throughout the year Dave helps each of his friends to overcome their fears. Eric is afraid to dance in front of everyone at the Back-to-School Dance. Andrew is so afraid of public speaking that he throws up and their class is assigned to do a speech in October. Vanessa is afraid of dogs, so her boyfriend Robbie makes Dave help her overcome the fear so she will be able to visit his house. And in December, while they are working on the science fair, he finds out that Claire is scared of the future and tackles that with her. The therapy methods Dave uses, and the results of his assistance are hilarious. For instance, part of helping Vanessa involves letting his Burmese mountain dog lick her face - which sends her shrieking out of the house. When he's not practicing psychology without a license, Dave is busy with the Nationals, a band he and his friends form. They only sing variations of the Canadian National Anthem. His friend Eric videos everything and posts it to YouTube.

There are so many true middle school moments in the story - the dance, the science fair, snow days, public speaking, avoiding homework...even annoying big brothers. Middle grade readers will recognize their own school-related fears and see the faces of classmates when they try to visualize the characters. Older readers will look back at their own middle school experience and wish it had been as entertaining as this book. Folks who enjoy the Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Origami Yoda, or the Hank Zipzer books will love 28 Tricks for a Fearless Grade 6.

I read an e-book provided by the publisher through NetGalley. It will be published on September 1,2014.

Summer Reading 2014 Maddy West and the Tongue Taker

Maddy's story is one filled with adventure, courage, friendship, and magic. She has the talent to understand and speak in any language and her mother gets the idea to make money from her talent by having her appear on television. Unfortunately, this attracts the attention of sinister forces. A professor comes and asks that Maddy accompany her to visit an ancient monastery and help her translate the scrolls that are stored there. But once they leave England and reach the town in Bulgaria where the monastery is located, things start to go very wrong very quickly. Not to give too much of the story away, but the problems include a sneaky monkey, a stowaway friend, a wicked witch and her daughters, a famous wrestler, assorted wildlife, and spell components like dragon's tongue and bat dung.

For readers who enjoy the magic and adventure of stories like Harry Potter (but don't mind that the book is under 300 pages in length), Maddy West and the Tongue Taker could be a perfect choice for you. 

I read an e-book provided by the publisher through NetGalley. It will be published September 1, 2014.

Summer Reading 2014 Jim Henson's The Storyteller

Growing up watching The Muppet Show, The Dark Crystal, and Fraggle Rock - it's hard not to be a Jim Henson fan. The characters and stories that came out of the Jim Henson studios were always entertaining. The tales in this volume are also entertaining and often have a moral to them, as many of the greatest tales often do. Presented by a variety of artists and writers, each story has its own style, yet they work well together as a collection. The inspiration for the stories comes from diverse roots such as Japanese and Russian folk tales and French fairy tales. You may recognize many of them as old friends that have donned a new appearance, while others may be completely new to you. Familiarity doesn't matter though, you will enjoy them all. Perfect for readers of all ages and a feast for the eyes as well as the mind.

I read an e-book provided by the publisher through NetGalley.

Summer Reading 2014 The Forbidden Library

Alice overhears her father arguing with a mysterious individual and sees what she thinks is a yellow and black fairy in their kitchen. Then her father leaves on a business trip and his ship is reported lost at sea with no survivors. The solicitors in charge of her father's affairs send her to live with an "Uncle Jerry" that she has never heard of before. She learns that Geryon is actually an ancestor from several generations ago who is a magic user known as a Reader. These magicians use magic from books and collect incredible hoards of books to search through them for sections that have the peculiar resonance of magic. Geryon believes Alice may have inherited the ability, and his hunch is confirmed when she accidentally activates a magical book.

The powers of the Readers can create "prison-books, portal-books, and world-books and books that lead to the bottom of the ocean.." They can take scraps of magic from different books and combine them together to create new things. Their power is a bit like that of Mo and Meggie in Inkheart or what Lybrarians can do in The Ninja Librarians, but even closer to what the characters in Libriomancer do. If you enjoy stories that explore the magical power of words and books, then try The Forbidden Library and join Alice in her search for answers.

I read an e-book provided by the publisher through NetGalley. It was published April 15, 2014.

You can find out more about the author at his website. He is working on a sequel to The Forbidden Library, titled The Mad Apprentice.

Summer Reading 2014 Braving the Brontes (Carly Keene: Literary Detective # 1)

I love books where the characters from our world get to meet famous people from history - and this is a triple crown winner, because Carly gets to meet all three of the Bronte sisters. Carly and her friend Francesca are always hoping for an adventure. They play games where they come up with scenarios and then imagine what a favorite character would do in the situation. They are on the lookout for a wardrobe or other everyday location that is actually a portal to another world, so it shouldn't be a big surprise when they discover an alleyway they have never noticed before and it contains a bookshop jammed with books of all sorts. Carly meets the owner and he offers to let her look at a first edition copy of Jane Eyre. Before she knows it, Carly has been transported to 1846 and is living with the Brontes as Charlotte's student. A ghost tells her that she must get the sisters to share their stories and then she must read Jane Eyre before she will be able to return to her own time. The only problem, the book hasn't been written yet! What's a girl to do?

Carly is a determined and spirited girl with plenty of imagination. She's also very fond of books and refers to them often, mentioning titles and characters that readers will recognize. Although her friend Francesca does not get to come along on this adventure, I'm sure that she is hoping for a chance of her own. If you enjoy books and mysteries, this is a mixture that will be your kind of story. I'm curious where and when Carly will go next.

I read an e-book provided by the publisher through NetGalley. The title was published on May 1, 2014.