Young Adult Comics

I haven’t had time to prepare a proper review for today as I’m currently studying for an exam. Don’t worry though – so long as I pass, everything should be back to normal for next week!

Anyhow, instead I thought I’d use today’s post to talk about something a little different. If you follow me on Goodreads, you’ll already know that I’m also an avid comic book reader. While comics are a bit more mainstream now than they once were, they’re still often looked down upon as being of lesser value than other forms of art and literature. This is quite frankly crazy – as with the novels that I’ve reviewed, the quality of comics can vary quite wildly between titles, writers and artists.

Therefore, I thought I’d use this post to talk about my favourite comics for middle grade and young adult readers. Everything on this list (apart from Nimona) is an ongoing series so you should be able to find them at your local book store, library or comic book shop. I also should note that all of these series are all Western comics. While I do also read manga, these days I’m more of a Western comic book reader and so I’m not up on the most recent Japanese titles to recommend.

Anyhow, let’s start with some Marvel comics!

YA Shot 2016 Tour – featuring Melinda Salisbury

Hello everyone! Today’s post is something a little different. I’m here today to talk about YA Shot.

YA Shot is a one-day festival that brings together UK Young Adult and Middle Grade authors. It’s a celebration of writing for young readers that aims to promote the joy of reading and inspire a passion for writing.

Although YA Shot works year around to help pair schools with local libraries for author events, the event itself takes place on 22nd October 2016. It involves around 70 authors and takes the form of a programme of workshops, panels and book singing sessions at Uxbridge Civic, Centre, Waterstone’s Uxbridge and Uxbridge Library. If you’re interested in attending, you should definitely check out their website – https://yashot.wordpress.com/ 

In honour of this special event, I’m pleased to have a special guest for this post. Melinda Salisbury is one of the fantastic authors involved in YA Shot. She’s the author of two fantastic fantasy novels – The Sin Eater’s Daughter and The Sleeping Prince – both of which you can find reviewed on this blog. The third book in the series, provisionally titled The Scarecrow Queen, is due for release in early 2017.

To read our interview and have a chance to win a copy of The Sin Eater’s Daughter, read on:

The Snow Sister

Well, the summer’s over and so it’s that time of year when advent calendars and baubles start to appear in shop windows. To celebrate the fact that there are only 110 more sleeps to go until Christmas, today I’m going to be looking at The Snow Sister by Emma Carroll. This short novella is due for release in October and is a stand-alone story, so you don’t need to read any of Carroll’s other novels to fully appreciate it.

It’s been three years since Pearl’s sister, Agnes, passed away and she’s never really had a chance to mourn. Her parents simply put all of her things into storage and have continued by seemingly ignoring the fact that they ever had two daughters. However, Pearl has never forgotten and every winter she dresses a snowman in one of Agnes’s shawls to pretend that her sister is still with her.

Everything changes on Christmas Eve when her father gets a letter. Her Uncle Silas has died and named her father as the sole beneficiary of his will. Her excited mother sends Pearl to town to buy the ingredients for Christmas pudding to celebrate the change in their luck.

Pearl’s trip is riddled with disaster as she is accused of a thief and then caught in an accident. Unable to walk, she winds up spending the night with the rich Lockwood family. While observing the behaviour of the Lockwood’s spoiled children, Pearl gradually learns that perhaps money isn’t the most important thing in life.

The Spiderwick Chronicles

Bonus review time. Yaaay! As I’m currently in the process of moving house, please enjoy this review of The Spiderwick Chronicles by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black.

The Spiderwick Chronicles are a series of five fantasy stories, aimed at middle grade readers: The Field Guide (2003), The Seeing Stone (2003), Lucinda’s Secret (2003), The Ironwood Tree (2004) and The Wrath of Mulgarath (2004). The series focuses on three children as they discover a mysterious book about faeries in their Great Aunt’s home. Following the critical acclaim of this series, a sequel titled Beyond the Spiderwick Chronicles was published between 2007 and 2009 and ran for three further novels.

Following their parent’s divorce, Jared, Simon and Mallory Grace are forced to move away from the city to live in a dilapidated country mansion, previously owned by their Great Aunt Lucinda. The house is filthy, rotting and filled with strange noises and the children want nothing more than to leave, however things start to change when Jared uncovers a secret room.

The room turns out to be the library of their Great Great Uncle Arthur and inside one of the books they find a riddle. On solving this puzzle, Jared finds himself in possession of his Great Great Uncle’s most treasured possession – a book titled Arthur Spiderwick’s Field Guide to the Fantastical World Around You. The book contains notes and drawings of the many different faeries that live in and around the house and using the book Jared manages to identify that most of the house’s problems are caused by a brownie by the name of Thimbletack.

Thimbletack warns the Grace siblings that the journal is dangerous. The faeries are worried about the secrets that the book contains and will do anything to ensure that it does not fall into human hands. Some of the beings wish to get hold of the book in order to destroy it, while others would use it to further their own evil ends. The children must make a decision about what to do with the journal, and quickly, before they meet a horrible fate at the hands of the faeries…