RSS

Category Archives: Illustrators

Series alert: Something is Killing the Children

When I was making my top lists of 2022 and finishing up the year of reading, I noted that there were a handful of books on my lists (as I narrowed them down and that made the lists themselves) that were series. I have a love/hate relationship with series but I’ve learned to accept them as a natural course of publishing and creativity. Several years ago I decided that if I wasn’t completely obsessed with the first book in a planned series, that I wouldn’t continue reading the series out of obligation. Instead, I would have enough to be able to recommend the series to audiences. And with so many books out there to read, spending time reading ones I weren’t in love with wasn’t making anyone happy.

Enter this comic series, Something is Killing the Children, written by James Tynion IV, illustrated by Werther Dell’Edera, and colored by Miquel Muerto and published by BOOM! Studios. I have read up to the twenty-first issue through Hoopla and looking on BOOM!’s website, it says that issue 21 is available but then I see that there is a fifth published volume that includes issues 21-25, so I’m going to have to visit my local comic book store to check this out. To fill my time and the gap in waiting, it was introduced to me this weekend that House of Slaughter existed, telling the backstory of one of the Orders of St. George and the namesake house that main character, Erica Slaughter comes from in the series.

And Erica as a character is the strongest part of the series. Readers want to follow her journey of slaying monsters and sassing law enforcement. This is in addition to the creatively drawn monsters that haunt the woods and kill children, the gore of the action sequences that are dark and haunting but aren’t so ridiculously bloody that it is gratuitous. On a whim I borrowed the first volume and was shocked by how much I got into the characters, setting, and story because the comic series is a well-rounded mix of it all.

I’ll be over here waiting for the next issue and looking around the house to figure out what my totem would be.

Top 10 of 2022: Middle grade edition

28 Dec

Middle grade needs it’s own category this year because I spent an inordinate amount of time reading the excellent selections of middle grade titles this year. It was a banner year for sure. Today I celebrate middle grade and tomorrow I’ll round out my four posts with the best of young adult.

When I look back at this titles as graphic novels, verse, manga, fiction, and nonfiction, I can’t help but celebrate the range, depth, and breadth of creativity and sensitivity for an age of transition. I should know since I have two thirteen year old boys myself. The message of perseverance; the power of individuality; the adventure; the need to remember the past and explore the future– it’s all here in these titles. If you’ve missed any one of these, you MUST pick it up.

Top 10 of 2022: Children’s book edition

27 Dec

And next up are my favorite children’s books of 2022, again from books actually published in 2022. Tomorrow I will share my favorite middle grade books before finishing up with young adult.

With a few words about these books– mind blowing, that’s all I can say! The skill of the power of an author and illustrator or when they are one person, the skill of reaching into a reader’s soul and pulling out the best (or worst) of the rainbow of human experiences and emotions is worth celebrating. Typically ones that touch me the most are ones that bring out a memory of my own childhood or a shared experience to reflect on as these all do.