Review: IT'S ALL ABSOLUTELY FINE

With brutal honesty and a sharp wit, London-based illustrator Ruby Elliot sets out to normalize mental health issues and struggles through her often hilarious but mostly poignant illustrated memoir, It's All Absolutely Fine. Published in 2016, it just came to my attention this year when another book blogger reviewed and it and spoke about its relevance and its truthfulness.

A quick Google search landed me on Ruby Elliot's webpage, Rubyetc, where I could revisit her quirky illustrating style. Since I'm not on Instagram, it is a good source to see her illustrating style. I love her description of herself, especially about humor since it is so evident in her book.

Ruby Elliot, also known as Rubyetc, is a cartoonist, illustrator and author who draws about sad things in a funny way and vice versa. She has been published in print (The New York Times, Random House, Orion) online (BBC, Tate Galleries, The New Yorker, Time To Change) and her mum's fridge (The Kitchen). She also runs popular drawing workshops for people of all ages and abilities, in educational settings and beyond. She takes silliness very seriously.

As I read It's All Absolutely Fine, I recollected times as a librarian where only illustrated books could reach students struggling with issues when regular printed material couldn't. Inside Out: Portrait of an Eating Disorder (Shivack) and Blankets (Thompson) are two that I found especially helpful. If I were still a teen librarian I would snatch up It's All Absolutely Fine and place it prominently in my library for those same students, those struggling to make sense of their lives, to find. It is a gem.

Sample page about feelings from It's All Absolutely Fine by Ruby Elliot

I see that Elliot has two newer books, Silly Me and Silly Us, published for the Pound Project in 2021 and '22 and I'm guessing the target of these books is children, based on their size and page count. I will look to see if my public library them.

Now for a quibble with the e-book publisher of It's All Absolutely Fine. It have a Kindle Fire which is several years old and also smallish. The publisher decided to put both sides of the page on one screen shot. There was nothing I could do to read the print and see the illustrations except to enlarge the font which distorted the page and meant I had to manipulate the screen and toggle it around to read everything which was a lot of work and irritating. It was so irritating, as a matter of fact, I nearly abandoned the book altogether. But I did finish the book, through gritted teeth, only because the illustrations and Elliot's disarming humor carried me along.

Publishing issues aside, I recommend this book to anyone who has experienced any kind of mental health issues, eating disorders, disordered thinking, bi-polar disorder, or knows someone who has. I think you will find it helpful and enlightening like I did. And you'll have a laugh while you are reading it.

-Anne

Review: COLIN KAEPERNICK CHANGE THE GAME: A GRAPHIC MEMOIR

Colin Kaepernick, the San Francisco 49er's quarterback, decided to take a knee during the playing of the National Anthem before a game in 2016, in protest for the way Blacks were treated in this country. As a result of this protest his contract was not renewed and he was blacklisted so no other teams would pick him up.

Before he became a football star, before he made his personal protest about the bad treatment of Blacks, before he was blacklisted, Colin was a high school student and athlete living with his family in Turlock, California. He was a three-sport athlete- football, basketball, and baseball- and everyone thought he would go pro as a baseball pitcher. Colin wasn't excited about baseball because, as MLB player Adam Jones said, "Baseball is a white man's sport." He didn't see himself the way others did. He wanted to play college football at Division 1 level. But he wasn't getting any offers to play football.

His white parents didn't seem to understand Colin and his resistance to playing baseball. They also didn't seem to understand what it was like for their son to be a Black man living in a predominately white community.

This touching graphic memoir explores how a young change-maker learned to find himself, make his own way, and to never compromise.

Since being blacklisted from NFL football, Colin has kept himself busy finding ways to help empower black and brown communities through education, self-empowerment, and mass-mobilization. In April 2022 he hosted a Know Your Rights Camp for youth in Las Vegas. He asked campers to share how they aspire to change the game. Their responses, recorded at the end of the book are very inspiring.

-Anne

Review: LONG WAY DOWN: GRAPHIC NOVEL

Back in November of 2017 I read the novel-in-verse Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds. Here is what I said about the novel at that time:

If you haven't heard of this book, it is about a boy who is considering killing the person he thinks killed his brother. While he is on the elevator heading out to do the deed he is visited by six "ghosts" of people killed by guns. It is very distressing to think that this book is reporting a truth, that a lot of killings in the inner city are considered honor killings...you killed my brother, so I will kill you. When will it stop? The whole book is written in verse. On occasion I had a hard time telling who was speaking and what was being discussed, but I got the gist of the message. Very powerful.

The book was very impactful and I carried its message around inside me for these past five years, but now I have discovered the answer to my confusion over who is speaking: Long Way Down: A Graphic Novel. The illustrations by Danica Novgorodoff leave no question which "gun-killed ghost" is speaking. And just like the ending of the original book, this one ends with the same question: what will William do? Will he carry on the tragedy of revenge killing or will he stop following those inane rules others lived and died by in the neighborhood -- if someone is killed, a family member needs to revenge that killing by killing the person who did it. Unfortunately, as the ghosts point out, often that family member doesn't actually know who did the killing so they end up killing the wrong person. It goes on and on. It needs to stop. Can Will break the pattern of killing?

This is Will's story.

 

Rule No. 1-No crying; No. 2- No snitching; No. 3-Revenge

I think the illustrations really enhance the book and I highly recommend this graphic novel.

-Anne

Review: SUPERMAN SMASHES THE KLAN

Superman Smashes the Klan by Gene Luen Yang and Gurihiru is an award-winning graphic novel about our favorite super hero. But this story is based on a real Superman genesis story.

Back in 1946, when Superman was just a few years into his worldwide introduction, there was a wildly popular 16-part radio series called, "The Adventures of Superman." In the series Superman took down a gang of robed, hooded, white supremacists. The story begins with a Chinese-American family moving into Metropolis when the Clan of the Fiery Cross (a fictional stand-in for the Ku Klux Klan) burns a wooden cross on the family's lawn. Superman comes to the rescue.

Gene Luen Yang, the author and graphic artist himself, is Taiwanese-American and was very excited when he learned about this early Superman radio program and the story's plot. Everyone has heard of the ways that the Ku Klux Klan terrorized African-Americans but few people are aware that a branch of the Klan started up in California in 1865 to thwart Chinese immigration and to terrorize Chinese already living in the state. In 1882 the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed, effectively ending all legal Chinese immigration. Finally in 1941 when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor did US citizens recognize that the Chinese were our allies against Japan. 

Superman was introduced to the world in 1939. During WWII he often faced off against Nazi villains like Der Teufel, and the Scarlet Widow. After the war, he continued his fight against hatred and bigotry, especially that directed at immigrants. This graphic novel, and the radio show it was fashioned after, shows us why. Superman is an immigrant himself, after all.

Why did I call this novel one of Superman's genesis stories? Well, here he is learning about his powers, often denying that he even has powers. He is also finally ready to learn about his past and where he came from. Since I am not a big DC comic person, I found this aspect of the book very genuine and touching: Superman didn't start off wearing a tight spandex suit, flying here and there, He started off walking fast and leaping up on telephone wires to get places fast. He got his idea for a costume from the strong man at the circus and the letter S on his chest didn't stand for "superman" but was a symbol of strength from his own planet.

In 2020, Superman Smashes the Klan won the Harvey Award for outstanding achievement in the comic book industry. In 2021 it won the 2021 YA Graphic Novel Cybils Award.

Even if you don't consider yourself a comic book or a super hero type of person, I still recommend that you take a look at Superman Smashes the Klan. It is a very NOW story with Nazism making a resurgence in 2022. Read it then spread the word so others will, too.

-Anne

Nonfiction Review: ON TYRANNY: Twenty Lessons From the Twentieth Century

I read ON TYRANNY: Twenty Lessons From the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder in October after Rachel Maddow highlighted it while interviewing the author. This version, the graphic edition illustrated by Nora King, had just been published and I determined it was a format I could deal with while attempting to cope with a difficult subject. 

I am one of those people who has a really hard time ignoring troubling news and that means that the last two years have been tremendously hard on me. What with 1/3rd the US population (a number I've made up) believing that Trump won the election but had it stolen from him, 1/4th (also made up by me) the population thinking batshit medicine is better than taking a vaccination to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus, and whole bunch of Trump-type followers thinking that democracy needs the heave-ho in favor of an authoritarian ruler in our country. It is as if they think anything is better than having a Democrat in power. I knew this book wouldn't be an easy read for me.

Timothy Snyder is a professor of history at Yale University and a scholar of the Holocaust and of fascism. His book On Tyranny was published in 2017, written in the aftermath of Trump's 2016 election and inauguration, to highlight the atrocities taken by Hitler and Stalin in the 1930s and draw some parallels to what he was seeing in our country. He decided to publish a graphic edition and rework some of the material to include the 2020 election because "Trump may be out of the White House now, but the forces that sent him there have hardly disappeared from public life" (New Yorker).

The book is divided up into twenty lessons. Each lesson is a chapter long, starting with 1. Do Not Obey in Advance and ending with 20. Be As Courageous As You Can. Hopefully you can read the rest of the titles of the Table of Contents in the above photo. (If you click on the photo, I think it is made larger.) The first chapter begins with this statement: Most of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a repressive government will want, and then offer themselves without being asked. A citizen who adapts in this way is teaching power what it can do. Snyder goes on to explain how this happened in Germany and Austria prior to WWII. In 1938 when Hilter was thinking about annexing Austria, Austrian 'anticipatory obedience' went right along plans against Jews and cinched their fate.

Each chapter built on the last and each chilled me to the bones -- the similarities of what was happening in Russia and Germany in the 1930s with what is happening today in America both astonished and depressed me. I had to talk to someone about what I was reading/learning. It didn't take me long to read the book which had lots of graphics and fewer words than a normal book and once I was finished I turned to my husband and asked him to read it so we could discuss it. He tried but the format didn't appeal to him. He had trouble with the handwritten text and the mixture of illustrations/photos with text interspersed throughout. (See examples above and below.)

In the illustration above we see the transformation of Hillary Clinton into a monster. This is part of the totalitarians play-book and is part of the four steps of how truth dies (pgs. 58-62). "Step 1- Open hostility to verifiable reality, which involves presented inventions and lies as facts. Step 2- Saying incantations over and over. Repetition creates "truth." So "Crooked Hillary" or "Sleepy Joe" become mantras and start changing perceptions of the masses. Step 3- Is magical thinking or the open embrace of contradictions. 'The vote is rigged but vote for me anyway.' Step 4- Misplaced faith. 'I alone can fix this.'" Ask yourself, does it feel like truth is dying? Do you wonder how so many people can go along with this kind of nonsense? Me, too!

So here we are living in the 1930s 2020s and it is impossible to understand how all this can be happening again. But I haven't lost hope. There are so many good people working to counterbalance the nonsense and as for me I will try to work up to number 20 and be as courageous as I can to help tip the scales back in the right direction.

-Anne

Friday Quotes and nonfiction review: Hey, Kiddo

Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Rose City Reader. Share the opening quote from the book.
The Friday 56 is hosted at Freda's Voice.  Find a quote from page 56.

This is the book I'm reading right now---

Title: Hey, Kiddo: How I Lost My Mother, Found My Father, and Dealt with Family Addiction by Jarret J. Krosoczka

Book Beginning:

Friday 56:

Review: Leslie, Jarrett's mom, is young and unmarried when he is born. She is also an addict who is always getting into trouble with the law because of the drugs. Jarrett doesn't know his father, not even his name. Fortunately, Leslie's parents/ Jarrett's grandparents, Joseph and Shirley, live nearby and become his surrogate parents. Hey, Kiddo: How I Lost My Mother, Found My Father, and Dealt with Family Addiction is a graphic memoir by a talented artists and illustrator, Jarrett J. Krosoczka, about his early life, illustrating very clearly what it is like growing up with so much dysfunction.

For several years of his early life, Jarrett lives with his mother. But things are not easy for him. On the Friday 56 page we see his mother shoplifting with Jarrett in tow. She gets arrested and his grandparents have to come to his rescue. Later, on the Book Beginning page we see it is grandpa who is teaching the teen Jarrett to drive. His first drive is in a local cemetery where Joseph and Shirley already have paid for their spot and their headstone. The reader becomes aware, almost immediately, how surreal events in Jarrett's life often seem.

By the time that Jarrett is school-aged, he is living with his grandparents full time. With his mother in and out of treatment or jail his home situation became too tenuous. Jarrett loves his grandparents but he is also embarrassed of them. His grandmother cusses like a drunken sailor and is often very disagreeable, especially toward Leslie. He feels like a loner at school and doesn't want his peers to know he lives with his grandparents not his mom. Finally however, he does make a friend, Pat, who accepts him and his family.

His grandfather is especially nurturing and encouraging and pays for special art lessons since the local school doesn't have an art program. It is at this program where Jarrett starts learning about expressing himself through art and to be himself as a unique artist. In one scene he tells the art teacher, Mark, that he has just finished reading a book about how to be a cartoonist like those working for Marvel. Mark tells him to forget everything he just read, to continue to explore his own style.

When Jarrett entered high school he found his place in the journalism department, drawing cartoons for the school newspaper. With the encouragement of his grandparents and his teachers, the shy loner was finding his way. Around this time Jarrett finally meets his real father and his two half-siblings. though he never lives with them, the relationship with his brother and sister becomes very important to him. By the time he is ready to graduate high school, Jarrett realizes something---family isn't about a prescribed set of relationships, but it is about the love you gain from the people around you. His grandparents weren't perfect, but they loved him and raised him. His dad was absent for all those years, but finally came around and he got some siblings out of the deal. His mom tried, but never conquered drugs, but she loved him in her way. Jarrett made peace with himself and with his family. His coming-of-age message is a very powerful message for children growing up in similar situations today.

This book is my top choice for Printz, Newbery or Cadecott Awards this year. I haven't read that many books that would qualify, as in years past, but this book is so good. When I started reading I was so uncomfortable then I realized that was the point, so was Jarrett and through his art he was able to convey this to his readers. Everything about his experience was so real and so relatable. As the graphic (illustrated) portion of the book closed, Jarrett left the reader with a few pages of end notes. He told us what he has done since he graduated high school and what happened to his mom and his grandparents. He is still in touch with his good friend Pat. The second note was about the artistic decisions and techniques he used to create the book. Both notes seemed so helpful. One for children who are also growing up with addicted parent(s) and living with grandparents or other family members. And the other for those students who enjoy art and wonder if there is a future for them in it.

I highly recommend this book for young and old teens and anyone who has a family or wants one. I promise you there are several cringe-worthy moments (and swear words) usually supplied by Shirley, but, hey, that's life, too!

Oh no. I did it, again.

Unbelievably I have done it, again. I have purchased another graphic novel not appropriate for public schools.  Last year I had to send back Habibi by Craig Thompson. Even though it had delightful illustrations I felt that the graphic nature of the rape scene was too explicit. If a regular novel has a rape scene one can imagine the details but in a graphic novel those pictures are right there.

I vowed to do better, to really do my homework before I ordered another book that needs to be returned because it is inappropriate for a school library. Apparently my admonition to myself didn't last long because earlier this month I ordered the graphic novel Blue is the Warmest Color  by Julie Maroh in an effort to enhance my LGBT selections. Apparently I didn't spend a moment looking at reviews, however. When it arrived I set it aside to read before I processed it (luckily) and within the first twenty pages I had a strong suspicion that the book was too "graphic" for us. I read on and with each page I felt that sinking feeling that comes when one becomes aware they've wasted money. As I called up the reviews, after closing the book on the last page, the first word that jumped out at me was "erotica." Oh-oh.

Don't get me wrong I am not condemning the book, I am only condemning my actions, ordering a graphic novel without reading the reviews first. Blue is the Warmest Color is the story of a girl, Clementine, who is attracted to another girl, Emma. She doesn't think of herself as gay and has a really hard time accepting herself and the attraction feelings she has toward Emma. There is a lot of anti-homosexual messages coming at Clementine from her family, friends, and society. She is very unhappy and records her thoughts in a diary. At her death Emma is given the diary to read. That is how the story begins, placing the last part first.

Blue is the Warmest Color is translated from French. It was made into an award-winning movie by the same name.

As tragic as the story is, the execution is fantastic. The illustrations are marvelous and the plot is helpful, if for no other reason than to shed a light on how devastating hatred and bigotry can be on actual lives. Occasionally I was a bit lost when the illustrations were supposed to carry to story forward and somehow I managed to loose the thread, but I was always able to find my way back to the plot. This book belongs in a public library and should be made available to the broadest clientele as possible. Unfortunately, it is just too graphic for the public schools. I will be sending it back. *Sigh.

Moon Moth, Jack Vance, and Me

A few days ago I received a box of books from Junior Library Guild. It contained books I'd ordered because they sounded good and the price was right, not because I'd read them or even heard of them before. In the box was this little graphic novel, The Moon Moth by Jack Vance. I'm sure I ordered it because I have a lot of graphic novel fans that use the library. At first glance it didn't seem that different than a lot of graphic novels I've handled in the past but as I started to read the forward by Carlo Rotella I realized I was wrong.  This was no ordinary graphic novel, it was one based on the classic short story by the master of this genre, Jack Vance. By the time I was done reading the forward this thought went through my head..."Oh no, I am almost too late to discover a treasure who has been with us for 96 years and I 've never heard of him before."

Jack (John Holbrook) Vance (born August 28, 1916 in San Francisco, California) is an American mystery, fantasy and science fiction author... Among his awards are: Hugo Awards, in 1963 for The Dragon Masters, in 1967 for The Last Castle, and in 2010 for his memoir This is Me, Jack Vance!; a Nebula Award in 1966, also for The Last Castle; the Jupiter Award in 1975; the World Fantasy Award in 1984 for life achievement and in 1990 for Lyonesse: Madouc; an Edgar (the mystery equivalent of the Nebula) for the best first mystery novel in 1961 for The Man in the Cage...Although legally blind since the 1980s, Vance has continued to write with the aid of BigEd software, written especially for him by Kim Kokkonen. .... A 2009 profile in the New York Times Magazine described Vance as "one of American literature’s most distinctive and undervalued voices." -Jack Vance Website

Wow, I'm not the only one who nearly missed this guy. "A distinctive yet undervalued American voice." 

The Moon Moth was originally written in 1961 and has been resurrected in the graphic form with terrific illustrations by Humayoun Ibrahim. Head over to Tor-Com to take a look at a page of the illustrations. It didn't take me long to read the book, just a few lunch periods in between circulation duties. I was quite captivated even though I didn't always know what was going on. Part of the reason for that was plot driven: 

Edwer Thissell, the new consul from Earth to the planet Sirene, is having all kinds of trouble adjusting to the local culture. The Sirenese cover their faces with exquisitely crafted masks that indicate their social status. Thissell, a bumbling foreigner, wears a mask of very low status: the Moon Moth. Shortly after Thissell arrives on Sirene, he finds himself embroiled in an unsolved murder case made all the more mysterious by the fact that since everyone must always wear a mask, you can never be sure who you’re dealing with. -Tor-Com

 In a lot of ways I think that Jack Vance was poking fun at some terribly series science fiction books with The Moon Moth, which was obviously silly and obsurd. Of course, one can't catch a murderer if everyone was wearing a mask, right?

Read it yourself and see how things turn out. I bet you'll become the next fan. Line up right behind me.

Library Wars....my first Manga!

I am now a full-fledged teen librarian.  I have just completed reading my first manga: Library Wars. One. Love and War by Kiira Yumi.

 I confess it was more difficult to read than I anticipated.  This is a Japanese-style manga read from back to front and right to left.  I kept getting goofed up and had to reread passaged several times to understand what was happening.

This series is wildly popular in my library right now so I thought I should take a look..  The series is about a group of individuals who are opposed to censorship and book banning.  They form the Library Defense Force against the actions of the Media Betterment Committee.  There is actually more about tension between men and women and martial arts/physical challenges than about censorship, at least in this first book of the series. 

Kiira Yumi's art is very good as I compare it to other manga I have looked at. I found the story a bit confusing as it seemed to jump around and not fix on one idea for too long but as this is my first manga I will not be too harsh in my judgment.  Perhaps this is typical of the story lines/plots of these types of stories.  I doubt that I will read the rest of the series but now that I've whet my whistle I think I might give another series a try, perhaps Deathnote or Naruto.  We'll see.  In the meantime here is a great quote from the book:

The Media Betterment Act was passed in the last year of the Showa era. It was the beginning of the book hunts. The Media Betterment Committee  was established in accordance with the Act. It seeks to exercise censorship over all media, including restricting offensive books. They're on a mission to deny citizens their right to free access media. Libraries are the only institution that can oppose their censorship.

The Alchemist: a Graphic Novel by Paulo Coelho

Back in the early 1990s I accidentally read The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho mistaking it for The Archivist by Martha Cooley, which was that month's book club selection. I remember thinking that it was a wonderful, allegorical tale and I looked forward to discussing it with others. That didn't happen, thanks to my mistake. Since that time both of my daughters have read the book for an English class assignment, most of my friends have read and enjoyed it, and it is the summer reading assignment for the in-coming senior class at my school. In all that time this is my first rereading of the book. I chose to read the Graphic Novel version, published in 2010, as I just purchased it for the library and wanted to know how true it was to the original story. Coelho said that he had long wanted a graphic adaptation for his tale but until he now he did not find a publisher or a design team that met his standards. This book, published by Sea Lion Books, was adapted by Derek Ruiz and illustrated by Daniel Samphere, is spot on! It catches all the main themes and adds a beautiful visual aspect to the story.

Here is the book's trailer:

Here are some interesting tidbits of information that I learned about the book from Wikipedia:

-The book was originally published in Portuguese in 1988.

-It has now been translated into over 65 languages, the most of any book with a living author.

-There has never been a big marketing campaign set up to sell the book, rather, most people select it based on a word-of-mouth recommendation from a friend.

The main theme of the book: To find your treasure you must discover and follow your own personal legend. "Those who don't understand their personal legends will fail to comprehend its teachings;" and "When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it."

Even though I am not a huge graphic novel fan, I enjoyed this adaptation of The Alchemist very much and can recommend it without reservation.

Stitches by David Small

Another wonderful graphic novel/autobiography. It is the story of a young boy whose father gave him cancer from too many radiation treatments during childhood. He also is raised by a mother who teetered on the edge of madness and denied him medical treatment because of the cost or the bother.

I was so wrapped up in this book that I had to sit in my library after I closed it until I was finished reading it. It didn't take long, just an hour or so, but during that I time it had my rapt attention.

I've been thinking a lot about the power of pictures in conveying a story as I've been gathering information for a teacher to use with her creative writing class on graphic novels. Small, an award-winning illustrator, uses his images effectively to convey the horrors of his childhood and the healing that followed with a minimum of words. Jules Feiffer says of this author/illustrator: "David Small presents us with a profound and moving gift of graphic literature that has the look of a movie and reads like a poem...We know that we are in the hands of a master."

I highly recommend that you go and visit Small's web-page where he has a short 4 minute slide show about the book. It is very powerful and will give you a good feel for the book.

Highly recommend teen through adult. 5 stars.

The Graphic Novel... a new genre for me

I have just discovered the joy of reading the graphic novel in an attempt to make myself a more "well-rounded" librarian. For those of you in my generation who may not know what a graphic novel is, it is a novel whose story is told through a combination of words and art, often in comic-strip form. Like all books, all graphic novels are not created equal. Kids at my high school mainly tend to read manga, or Japanese-style comics. I don't care for this style, personally, though I understand the appeal. I think it is similar in appeal to the comic books I used to devour as a kid, like Archie, Superman, or my old favorite, Mad Magazine.

The graphic novels that I prefer are the ones that tell a story, sometimes autobiographical and incorporate a variety of artistic styles. I do not prefer the ones that are too much like comics with small voice bubbles and lots of frames per page. It may be a function of my age, but I prefer to have larger frames and I like looking at the art as I read. If my eyes have to work too hard, I might as well be reading a regular novel.

Two graphic novels that I've recently read and enjoyed are Blankets and Tales from Outer Suburbia.

Blankets by Craig Thompson was recommended to me by a new student. It is a coming-of-age tale about a boy who is raised in a very strict, fundamentalist Christian home who is not encouraged by his family or his church to use his artistic abilities, but rather to give them up in favor of more holy vocations like being a minister. I could relate to many of the author's dilemmas and problems. When he went to school he was shunned or teased. When he went to church related events, he never quite fit in. And then there was the tender young love story that caused me to reflect back on my teen years. I was very moved while reading this lengthy graphic novel. The artistry is consistently good and moves the story along. Don't be intimidated by the size of this book. It reads very fast with so many pictures.

Tales from Outer Suburbia by Shaun Tan is a series of fifteen illustrated vignettes. Each of the stories are "out there" but are fun, whimsical, or thought provoking. My favorite vignettes are Eric, an outer-space alien as an exchange student, and a poem about what happens to most poems. The artistic style changes with each vignette making each stand out in a very unique way. Tan won many awards for his graphic book, The Arrival, and I bet that this book will win a bunch also. It deserves it. It will take you less than an hour to read but give yourself plenty of time to enjoy the drawings.

Take time to enjoy a new genre along with me.