Review: The Dumbest Idea Ever! by Jimmy Gownley

 
Title: The Dumbest Idea Ever!
Author: Jimmy Gownley
Illustrator: Jimmy Gownley
Publisher: Scholastic Graphix
Copyright: 2014
Price: $11.99

ISBN: 978-0545453479
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Summary and Quick Thoughts: Being a teenager sucks, but for Jimmy, he's having a tough time. First he gets sick and misses school, then he gets sick AGAIN and misses more school. He stops caring about school and starts focusing on his comics. A friend suggests a comic book idea for him, but he decides it's the dumbest idea. Only when his first idea flops, does he give it a chance and lands on possibly the best idea ever. As Jimmy rise in fame, he's also dealing with normal teenage things like first loves and changing friendships.
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Recommended Audience: Middle School
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Things to be aware of: Nothing.
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Further Thoughts:  Jimmy Gownley is probably best known for his Amelia Rules series, which is very popular (it is in my library), so this will probably be snatched up by readers who love the series. To be honest, readers will probably read this because it's a Scholastic middle school slice of life graphic novel with praises from Jeff Smith (Bone), Raina Telgemeier (Smile, Sisters), and Jeff Kinney.

Take all that away though and you have a great biographical story about how Jimmy Gownley's teen years helped him become a graphic novel artist. He shows how he did research, practiced drawing, and had a good support system, including supportive parents. This graphic novel is perfect for any budding artist, writer, or creator to see how Jimmy survived his teen years and made it.

There are a few fantastical elements that help him. Jimmy talks to the Grim Reaper, showing at least twice how he thinks he wants to die, only to realize he wanted to press on. For me, this was a strong point in the story and helped me become invested in it. When it ended, I didn't want it to end. Thankfully there's an afterward that expands on it.


Overall feeling: Cartoonish art, inspiration, slice of life, and teen years combine for a powerful story that begs to be read multiple times and shared with friends. A must have.
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Bonus: Jimmy Gownley is from PA (according to the bio). He spoke at PaLA in 2008.
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Source: Library/Review copy

The Glorkian Warrior Delievers a Pizza!

Not the coloring my copy had

Title:  The Glorkian Warrior Delivers a Pizza
Author: James Kochalka
Illustrator:  James Kochalka
Publisher:  First Second (:01)
Copyright:  2014
Price: $12.99
ISBN: 978-1596439177
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Summary and Quick Thoughts: Super Backpack wants to go on an adventure! Glorkian Warrior wants  an adventure...on the couch...napping. The phone rings and, after The Glorkian Warrior realizes he has a phone, he answers the call...to deliver a pizza. It must be destiny! But wait...he doesn't have a pizza, or does he? Yes, the pizza in his fridge will do. Despite adventures like crashing his Glorkian Super Car to meeting with Gork to an alien abduction attempt, The Glorkian Warrior will deliver the pizza to...wait...
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Recommended Audience: Elementary kids
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Things to be aware of: ?
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Further Thoughts:  If you find the summary odd, that's how I found this book: odd. It's not quite on par with A.L.I.E.E.E.N (which has a different author, is very strange, and not a kids book). The Glorkian Warrior Pizza book is slapstick, cartoonish humor. The Glorkian Warrior never gets a name and he just wants to deliver the pizza from the mysterious phone call. I, personally, would not want some random guy's pizza.

It's a strange book. For kids, it's a story involving a mundane task which becomes an epic adventure. The Warrior makes friends and avoids danger. He pretty much bumbles his way into saving the day. Normally, I like the bumbling hero, but I'm not so sure about this guy.

Basically, it has what kids would like (I think?). There's bad grammar, bad jokes, and cartoon illustrations. Silly humor and silly adventure.

My issue was that it was hard to get into. Everything that could go wrong, did. The Glorkian Warrior is pretty oblivious. What I did enjoy was the cyclic story and the adorable alien that adopts him. But, I'm still left with this feeling that something is off. Honestly, I can't figure out what I find off about this book.

Overall feeling: Hard to say. It seems like kids would love this. If you need more random humor graphic novels, go for it.
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Source: Library/Review

Machine of Death: a book (or [oh, see in the post])

(Or what to do when customers asks if you bought the book yet or they donate a copy...or five).

It all started last week (maybe before then, but last week it was on my radar) on Twitter when David Malki ! (of Wondermark fame who gave away books to LIBRARIES a while back) and Ryan North challenged the Twitter-verse and web comic fans alike to make their upcoming compilation book the number 1 seller on Amazon for at least one day, which was yesterday. Well, you can see here, here, and here (not sure that link will hold) that it happened, and it has gone into today. Impressive. Many, many kudos to the fact it is an Indie Book and it topped.

Well, today, the story just got a little more interesting. According to David Malki !'s Twitter here and continued here, Glenn Beck (of this book fame [I do not endorse this book, I just know that you may only know who he is by his book*]) called the book "an example of our 'culture of death.'" The Twitter-verse is just RUNNING with this and challenging the fans to buy MORE copies or convince more people to buy copies.

So, as a librarian do I purchase this book for my collection or not?

Non-librarians, here is the dilemma: there are no professional reviews backing this up (that I've seen) and it hasn't reached the NYTimes Best Seller list. These are two factors in most libraries when determining whether or not to purchase a book. While it is a talked about book, I find that the audience for this book will be small. The concept is different, but sight unseen, this is one of the few books I honestly can't say I'd pick up for my Library Collection. I'd be likely to pick it up if I knew that there was a huge Glenn Beck fan base in the area (Banned Book, anyone?), but a quick search of the county I work in** shows me this is not necessarily the case. A search of Worldcat also shows me that no one has purchased Machine of Death yet, and judging by what it is, libraries won't even start getting it until a month from now (if they do).


So, non-librarians, you now know why it might not be in your libraries and librarians, you are prepared if you should decide to purchase this book (due to all the suggestions) or know why you might suddenly end up with 1-5 copies of the book (guys, if you do donate, PLEASE don't donate more than 1, also, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE check with your librarians about their donation policy before donating).

I'm willing to review Machine of Death for this here blog, but I just want to warn you, I'm in a state of upheaval considering I'm hoping to move next week and am starting a new adventure shortly thereafter. If you want me to review before the end of next week, please annoy me (comment below or e-mail me at ReadsRantsRaves [at] gmail [dot] com or @me on Twitter.com/readsrantsraves) and I will get a copy one way or another.

For an added bonus, I challenge everyone to get this thing on the NYTimes Best Sellers list because then EVERYONE will be talking about it. :)
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*In fact, I'd like to go to DC this weekend for the Daily Show/Colbert Report March.

**Not for much longer. It's bittersweet.

So Farmville is a country!

This is probably old news by now, but I just couldn't help linking to this.

XKCD has made a map of the Internet as countries (at least that's how I see it). Either way, it is a nifty representation of web sites from Facebook to blogging and how "popular" one site is from another. It is pretty wicked cool. Although, book blogs don't rank anywhere...

In other news, I'm going to do some blog cleanup one of these days and move the blog to a better (more logical) address (I have it! I'm squatting!). I've got a small vacation (translation: lots of time at grandmom's house) coming up and hope that I can put some "blog" stuff on the agenda. My time has been eaten up by little things such as my job (yay school visits) and school work. Here's hoping I get a better handle by the end of next weekend!

Things Librairans Should Unlearn: Comic Book Edition!

[This week's review will be posted in a few days so I can join in on the Manga Movable Feast! YAY!]

I was inspired by Joyce Valenza's post (which was inspired by this post) earlier this week about what Teacher Librarians Should Unlearn and her challenge to create a meme based off of this was almost impossible to resist.

So I present to you, Things Librarians Should Unlearn: Comic Book Edition. This collaborative effort by me, The Philosopher Musician, and Sir Shanley hope to enlighten you about some common misconceptions about comics and the library.

Things Librarians Should Unlearn: Comic Book Edition

1. Graphic novels are not literature
2. Graphic novels and comic books do not belong in the library
3. All graphic novels should only be shelved in the [adult, teen, or children's] collection.
4. The ALA Great Graphic Novel Lists, professional titles, and professional journals are the best and, in fact, only graphic novel collection development tools out there.
5. Book to graphic novel adaptations are usually awesome and a must have. Especially classic books and authors.
6. Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh, and DragonBall Z are the best examples of manga.
7. Anime and manga titles we don't recognize are probably dirty, violent, and pornographic.
8. Only social outcasts and reluctant readers read graphic novels.
9. Only children read comics.
10. Librarians don't read comics.

May the 4th Be With You: Linky Linky

May is the ULTIMATE month for Geeks it seems. First, we comic geeks have Free Comic Book Day (pics of my goodies soon to come. Probably Thursday) and today is May the 4th Be With You Day (for Star Wars Nerds/Geeks which includes one of my best guy friends). And there just seems to be a lot of good articles, although, some may be from last week a.k.a. April.

I'm predicting a trend toward graphic novels soon. I was at a workshop on Thursday where I brought this up in a discussion about words and how teens and the younger set use text messaging more and more than older communication forms (Pew Research Center). There just seems to be more graphic novels than ever since I started reading them at the tender age of 14 or 16 (really longer than that, but I became serious then). First, the bookstores had one shelf section, now there's 3-5 sections and it is overwhelming and growing. With text messaging, I think that graphic novels will be the next book craze simply because less text, more images. There's also a different reading skill involved, although it is the same (it's very hard to explain). I'm also noticing a trend in the kidlit blogosphere that every once in a while a graphic novel pops up where I'm pretty sure there wasn't any before (but I've only been in this for 6 months to a year).

This is interesting. The trends of high school students from those at School Library Journal. The real reason I link to it though, is look at the center blurb. Graphic novels and the appeal is explained well. Although, the zombies in the top blurb are interesting...

Publishers Weekly had a great article, which I think every librarian should see. Here's a Google Cached version (please tell me if it doesn't work). The article talks about a librarian and an ALA rep who spoke at the Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo about censorship, library policies to include dealing with graphic novels, and more. The article also covers the recent issue over the 11 yr old and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Black Dossier challenge from a library staff worker, Tin Tin In The Congo, and Blankets. Overall, I thought this was a very informative article and includes what librarians need to think about when supporting graphic novels (and please do!).

Lastly, CNN's Geek Out! Blog has made the rounds on my Twitter feed because of the Shirt Discussion. Basically, this article talks about how Geeks really enjoy fun shirts such as the shirt featured on the blog. These shirts connect us Geeks in various ways. Let me explain. First, I own that shirt and in fact, I own many other "Geek Shirts" to show my geek cred. I've mainly aquired bookish shirts such as Bibliophabian (gift), She Blinded Me With Library Science Tote (gift), Science Is a Verb Now (gift) and more from Unshelved's Store Threadless (not mentioned in the article, but should be because I have two Batman shirts from there). Just to throw it out there I want White Text On a Black Shirt. It showed up in Questionable Content (NSFW) and it was just brilliant. Many of his t-shirts come from his comics, i.e. She Blinded Me With Library Science.

The She Blinded Me With Library Science Story to illustrate the above article.
In the comic, the character who is technically Marten's Boss at the All Girls School College Library is a lesbian and first appeared in the series with a text shirt saying "She Blinded Me With Library Science." At the time, this became a heavily requested shirt to be made and when it was, everyone was excited!

In 2008, I went to the state library conference and on the first day, someone was wearing this shirt. I told my mom excitedly I knew about that shirt and I admired her for wearing that t-shirt! Unfortunately, I didn't introduce myself to her and she could have been a good friend. She actually wore pretty awesome clothes and was in many of the workshops I was in. This Christmas, my best guy friend got me the bag and the Science is a Verb Shirt (and Bibliophabian a few Christmases ago). Basically, I recognized a fellow Geek and QC reader. These shirts do more than make a statement for Geeks, it connects us. If you still don't get it, think about your library themed shirts. Same thing.

May the 4th Be With You Today!

Review: Love*Com volume 10

A review in which I include sarcasm.

Title: Love*Com (Lovely Complex) Vol. 10
Author: Aya Nakahara

Illustrator: Aya Nakahara
Copyright: (2001 – Japan) 2009

Price: $8.99

ISBN: 978-1-4215-1743-8
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Summary: As college plans materialize for Otani and her friends, Risa realizes she needs to do something with her life. In a small attempt to stay close to Otani, Risa lands a job in a nearby restaurant, but to her surprise, meets a fellow, short, and male, co-worker who loves her favorite musician. Her co-worker Kohori obviously likes her, but Risa loves Otani and is loyal to him. Unfortunately, a poor decision, misunderstood situation, and stress lead to Otani breaking up with Risa. Is this relationship over? Far from it.
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Thoughts: [Sarcasm] Oh no! Risa did something stupid and now Otani breaks up with her? Whatever shall we do? [/sarcasm] Fear not, fair reader, this is your typical manga shojo where the characters are split and true feelings arise. Finally, Otani declares his love to Risa and all is well. I think I can continue with the series now, although, I was hopeful that Risa would grow a little bit since the series started. Honestly, I was finding it hard to push my way through the last two volumes and I was thinking about giving up on this one.

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Will Teens Like It? Yeah. This is the same drama as the last few volumes, but the romance at the end will make hearts melt.

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Things to be aware of: There is one curse word in a tiny bit of thought text. Oh, and an old lady kissing Kohori at the Christmas party.
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Bonus:

Source: Library.

Enjoy This Comic

This just gets me chuckling every time I see it (but I love anything poking fun at Twilight/Stephanie Meyer). The Philosopher Musician pointed this out to me. I have to remember to add XKCD to my growing list of web comic feeds in Bloglines. I do love web comics.

Troll Slayer

(Comic from: http://xkcd.com/591/)