Of Vampires and Werewolves


It’s a well-known fact that I harbor no love for the Twilight saga. To put it succinctly, among a host of other reasons, I am not a fan of the teen paranormal romance genre in general, I find Stephenie Meyer’s writing abhorrent, I prefer vampires who don’t sparkle (and  pasty-faced Rob Pattinson doesn’t do anything for me, either, not that I would spend good money on any of the movies), and I consider Bella Swan one of the worst characters I’ve ever read in print (Twi-hards, please don’t spam me with hate messages!).

That said, I didn’t have high hopes for the Twilight graphic novel, which my boss lent me to review.  I was curious for two reasons: local bookstores are having price wars to drive the sales of the books (there are even billboards for the book!); and I wanted to see how it was adapted visually, given its base material.

I also had a chance to review Maggie Stiefwater’s Shiver, which, despite my apprehensions, turned out to be a pleasant surprise.

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More Po-Mo picture books (Picture book roundup 10)

Wolves

I’ve been fascinated with postmodern picture books ever since I took a course in children’s books back in college. Since then I’ve been building up my collection of po-mo picture books, and I’ve now got over 20 of them, mostly from rummaging through bargain bins.

I love how po-mo picture books challenge the reader to look at things in a different way, offering an enjoyable experience to both the young reader, the parent reading to the child, and even an older reader randomly picking up the book and flicking through the pages.

The multiplicity of meanings also encourages creativity and imagination in constructing the meaning of the text or illustrations, as well as the interest to reread a book.

I also marvel at the writers and illustrators’ creativity in taking the craft of picture books one step further,  defying convention and structure

I have several books in this picture book roundup: The Story of a Little Mouse Trapped in a Book by Monique Felix; Wolves by Emily Gravett; Zoom and Re-Zoom by Istvan Banyai; Bamboozled by David Legge; and Pinocchio the Boy, or Incognito in Collodi by Lane Smith (books 175-180 for 2009).

(In case you missed it, I previously discussed the characteristics of po-mo picture books in the post I did on The Three Little Pigs.)

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