Twilight the Graphic Novel Volume 1 - Book Review

Twilight the Graphic Novel  Volume 1
by Stephanie Meyer
Art and Adaptation by Young Kim
Hachette Book Group
2010
ISBN: 978-0-7595-2943-4
$19.99
pp 160

What is one of the most requested books at the HHA Middle School Library in Baltimore City? 

Answer: Twilight the Graphic Novel Volume 1

When asked why do students say they want to read this book?

Answers:  "I ljust loved this book because I can relive the Twilight book in a whole new way! I would keep checking it out if I could but the request list is really long right now." - Jennifer, age 11

"I really enjoyed seeing my favorite characters from the Twilight books in this graphic novel...the pictures are beautiful." - Sarah, age 13

“I loved the Twilight movie, but never wanted to read the long books – until I read this version. It is the right Twilight book for me. – Heymi, age 13

This graphic novel is adapted from the very popular book Twilight by Stephane Meyer and opens with a ringing endorsement by the author herself:

" I love Twilight: The Graphic Novel. It's simply beautiful...The art made (the story) fresh again. I hope everyone has that same experience with it.".

Before one opens the book the cover art of the main character Bella truly seems to draw the reader in. The fairy tale like portrayal of Bella and particularly her flowing hair, make it hard to walk by without wanting to take a look inside. 

The story begins with a closeup of Bella's tear filled cheeks and her tousled locks and a very compelling opening line..."I'd never given much thought to how I would die - though I'd had reason enough in the last few months..."

The entranced reader is now introduced to Bella and her father that she had chosen to move back in with in 

"cloud covered Oregon." 

The tale continues as Bella struggles to fit in at a new high school.  At this point, I must comment on the "graphic" aspects of this novel. While I personally found the pictures themselves to be very appealing and according to many Middle School critics that I talked to - "the pictures are great in this book!"- I found the placement of the text bubbles to be very distracting. Many times, as seen in both examples both above and below, the bubbles cover the faces of the characters to the point of distorting the image. I assume that much time is spent placing these text boxes and I cannot help but feel that they could have been placed more appropriately.  Often in this book I found myself distracted by these bubbles when I truly wanted to just enjoy pictures!

As the story continues, and I got more comfortable with the awkward bubbles, Bella finally meets her destined love, Edward Cullen,  and is initially hurt and confused by his efforts to avoid her. Many of Kim's  drawings help the reader to feel Bella's pain, confusion, and conflict through her detailed facial expressions and strategically placed tears.  Edward's strange actions, evasive family members, and physical differences compel Bella to more and more about him.  As she innately knows, but confirms through investigations she confirms that he is **spoiler alert** that this boy that she is falling deeply in love is a true danger, a true freak, a true vampire.

This version of Twilight is obviously, purely from it's length of only 160 pages boiled down from a book that is 500+ pages, a synopsis of the original book. Many details from the book are left out and or combined. For trure Twilight fans, this short version may be a bit frustrating, but if taken as just an excerpt from the book, and as a chance to enjoy some beautiful illustrations of some favorite characters, it is very worth it!

10+ Do to the shorten story and the appealing pictures I would recommend this version of Twilight to even the younger Twilight fans.

Other selections that I would recommend to readers that enjoyed this are:

The original Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer

Twilight
Eclipse
New Moon

Breaking Dawn


















To  just learn more about this fascinating author enjoy the official Stephanie Meyer website.


A fun website to find a list of more teen vampire genre books check out the Monster Librarian. http://www.monsterlibrarian.com/vampiresya.htm


Other Graphic Novels that readers might enjoy try visiting the American Library Associations Young Adult list for top Graphic Novels for 2010 by clicking here.

Book Review Non Western The Firefly Letters: A Suffragette's Journey to Cuba

The Firefly Letters: A Suffragette's Journey to Cuba
Winner of the Pura Belpre' Honor Book
by Margarita Engle
pp 151
Henry Holt and Company, New York 2010
ISBN 978-0-0850-9082-6


An artist paints a picture. They carefully plan their brushstrokes to set the right tone, to use the right colors, to tell the right story... somehow the artist knows all the right combinations to catch our eye and have us visit another world for awhile.

In The Firefly Letters: A Suffragette's Journey to Cuba   Margarita Engle is the artist and her medium is poetry.  Poetry that, like a great work of art, captures our attention and literally takes us on a journey that is quite transformative.  One minute the reader is sitting in 2011 and the next he/she is thrown into the dark and sinful world of Cuba's slave culture in 1851.

The first page of this story which is told in alternating narrative poems, sets the tone:

"in the silence of night
I still hear my mother wailing,
and I see my father's eyes
refusing to meet mine.

I was eight, plenty old enough
to understand that my father was haggling
with a wandering slave trader,
agreeing to exchange me
for a stolen cow."

Engle tells this story from the perspective of three main characters and allows their alternating poems to weave true details with fiction in such a way that leaves the reader yearning for more.  The setting is Cuba 1851 and Swedish born Fredrika Bremer, an author and activist, has come to experience what she thinks will be a quaint visit to a rustic country. What she finds instead is Elena, a twelve year old daughter from a wealthy family who yearns for her own freedom as a woman and her translator Cecilia, a young pregnant slave girl, who yearns for her family and for her freedom.

With Cecilia by her side to translate, Fredrika spends her days interviewing freed slaves, praying in the back of the church with the slave girls and telling of her own quest for freedom from her own family.  Cecilia uses this time with Fredrika to tell her own tortured story that she has bottled up inside for years.

"The boats are close now -
I cannot stay!
The memory of arrival
and loss
is too fresh.

Fredrika does not see their faces yet,
all the children from a slave ship
riding in those small boats,
gliding toward this lonely shore
in chains.

...
Gasping for breath,
I struggle to remember
my mother's voice
and I struggle
to forget
all the rest..."

As Fredrika and Cecilia travel together to the other side of the island one is able to also come to realize the torment that Elena feels as a young women trapped by privilege and the expectations for women at this time in history.

"How disturbing it feels
to envy Cecilia,
a slave.

She is free,
at least for now,
to run and shout
out in the open
...
just like a man
or a boy."

As the three women become closer their quest for freedom for each other burns as bright as the fireflies that crowd the night skies. The question is will any one of them truly fly free?

The history behind this story of poems is as fascinating as the story.  The Historical Nots at the end of the book gives a detailed look at the true Fredrika Bremer and her work for women's and children's rights and for her quest for peace across the globe.

Whether one is a history buff, women's rights advocate, or a lover of poetry this gentle yet powerful story should not be missed.

I would recommend this book to the youngest of young adults - 5th grade and up but would also highly recommended it to high schoolers and adults. The poems take the reader in and make a time in history truly come alive through the characters' eyes.  It also provides a wonderful motivation piece to get students more interested in the history of Cuba, woman's rights, and the slave trade and could be used nicely in conjunction with some non-fiction resources about these specific historical events.

To learn more about Fredrika Bremer please read a brief biography here http://www.paperbackswap.com/Fredrika-Bremer/author/

To learn a little more about the Cuban slave trade click here.

To enjoy more of Margarita Engle's seemingly magical words you might enjoy her other books:
The Poet Slave of Cuba - winner of the Pura Belpre' Award. Click here for a review of this book.
The Surrender Tree  Click here for a review of this book.
Tropical Secrets Click here for a review of this book.

If you enjoy historical fiction I would also highly recommend The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.

Similar to The Firefly Letters, this powerful story is told through engaging characters and reminds one of a heart breaking time in history, Nazi Germany.

Book Review the Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Scholastic Inc. 2008
pp 374
ISBN-13: 978-0-439-02352-8

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins will make you very uncomfortable.

You may become so uncomfortable that you may have to put it down even physically walk away from it for a while, but I am certain that you will return to it.

Suzanne Collin's heart wrenching dystopia is set in the not too far future in a society named Panem.  Panem is divided into 12 districts that are under the iron fist control of "the Capital" and it's leaders.  District 13, it is revealed, was wiped into oblivion as an example to the rest of the Districts of the power that is over them.  Each District has a distinct purpose - to mine coal for the Capital's energy, to harvest crops for the Capital's elaborate menus, or  to grow trees to provide wood for the Capital's detailed architecture. We learn that the Capital and it's citizens live a life a luxury, comfort, modern technology and safety from the yearly "Hunger Games" while the rest of the population must suffer from cruel tortures from the government, barely an enough food to survive, and the constant fear that their loved ones will be chosen for the Hunger Games.

What are the "Hunger Games"? What single event can drive a whole population into submission, poverty and fear?

Almost immediately Collins describes this gruesome adaptation that is part reality tv, part gladiator like game, and part hell on earth.  As we soon learn,  The Hunger Games take place once a year and each District must pull a boy's and a girl's to represent them in the games.  These "tributes" as they are called must then dazzle the live tv audience across Panem as they literally fight to the death. Losing means death, while living means waking everyday from the nightmares that you endured in this technologically advanced gladiator-style arena.

In a blink of an eye, Katniss Everdeen, volunteers to take the place of her sister Prim, when her name is pulled to represent their District.  "I reach her just as she is about to mount the steps. With one sweep of the arm, I push her behide me.  "I volunteer! I gasp. "I volunteer as tribute!" There's some confusion on the stage. District 12 hasn't had a volunteer in decades and the protocol has become rusty. The rule is that once a tribute's name has been pulled from the ball, another eligible ... boy...or girl..can step forward to take his or her place...But in District 12, where the word tribute is pretty much synonymous with  the word corpse, volunteers are all but extinct." From this point on the reader is engulfed in the intense questions of what motivates this character to make the ultimate sacrifice -  giving one's life for someone you love.

 Katniss character development is incredibly compelling - she is a classic tortured heroine that could easily walk along side Huck Finn in terms of being an endearing, yet flawed character. 

Through Katniss' emotional struggles, the reader can feels those same heart wrenching questions being released from our inner being. What would I do in a life threatening situation? What would I do to protect someone I love?  What am I truly "made of"?

Suzanne Collins has us follow Katniss through this living nightmare and pulls at one's heart strings with such characters as Gale, Haymitch, Katniss' mother and sister Prim, and Peeta (fellow Hunger Games participant).  It is through these characters Collins is again able to make the reader grapple with the one emotion that many define as the characteristic that truly defines us as human beings - the capacity to truly love.

This love manifested in a love for someone else or even simply as Peeta's explains, "a purity of self." In this book of intense emotions and even graphic deaths, it is Peeta's words "I want to die as myself...I don't want them to change me in there. Turn me into some kind of monster that I'm not..." that the reader truly gets the sense that this is a more profound book about the human character than they might have realized. With this complex layers and themes I actually recommend that readers take the time and read this book more than once.

 So find your most cozy chair, make a cup of soothing tea and get started reading.... it's time to get uncomfortable.


Ages 13 and up:
Due to the fact that the overall premiss of this book is killing for "game" - I would be cautious in recommending this to any young adults under 8th grade.  This book has become quite a phenomenom with adults too due it's intriguing characters and complex underlying themes.  As an adult lover of Young Adult literature I truly enjoyed this article in the New York Times that helps me to realize that I am not alone.
http://www.bookclubgirl.com/book_club_girl/2010/08/i-finished-hunger-games-some-questions-for-the-readalong-plus-todays-new-york-times-on-the-popularit.html


Obviously if you enjoyed this book it is my recommendation to keep reading the trilogy: Book 2 Catching Fire and Book 3 Mockingjay.  They will not disappoint. The themes of power, true love, human sacrifice that pull one into The Hunger Games  are magnified as Katniss and Panem are pulled into making the decision to fight for their desires at a whole scale level.

Suzanne Collins is a griping writer whose talent can be enjoyed by the younger audiences by reading her earlier published series : Gregor of Overlander.  This 5 part book series may also be a good recommendation for those students, like my 8th graders that I read The Hunger Games series with, who just need to get a bit more Suzanne Collins in them.  Like the Hunger Games,  this series is full of adventure, complex but often endearing characters, and suspense.  Read a short review here: http://www.commonsensemedia.org/book-reviews/gregor-overlander-underland-chronicles-book-1