MADreads

This short and thought provoking comic will tug at your heartstrings. It's the first day of school and an introverted girl who wants to be left alone finds an empty seat on the bus. She settles in for a ride of quiet and solitude. This is interrupted by a curious and talkative little boy who keeps pestering her for school supplies. His constant requests and questions wear her down and she finally snaps at him.

Author Bobby Hall, a.k.a. Logic, is one of my niece Abby's favorite artists and she recommended I read this book. So I did! My brief summary of the book is that the main character, a twenty-something man named Flynn, works at a grocery store. On a surface level, libraries and grocery stores are very similar. They have lots of stuff organized in specific ways and many people coming and going, using the space in a variety of ways. I was thinking about this as I was reading the novel. I was also thinking about the fact that Abby works in a grocery store, too.

Adventure and new friends abound in Dog Loves Drawing by Louise Yates. Dog gets a brand new sketchbook from his dear Aunt Dora. “Dog knew exactly what to do. . .“ He begins his own story! With pencil in hand, he draws a door and steps through. He is joined by a stickman, duck, owl, and crab. Of course, they decide to ride a train and, then, set sail on a boat to a sandy island. The sketched illustrations fit well with the storyline. Soft colors and spare lines add to the gentle feel of the book.

As a kid I loved the Three Musketeers (book and movies) but as an adult when I revisited the story I found my interest had waned. I think that fading interest comes from the fact that the parts for women just aren't that enthralling and in fact if you think spend any time thinking about it, their treatment by the heroes is pretty bad. That said, there was one female character who always intrigued me. She is the Musketeer's frequent antagonist, Milady de Winter. In Ms. Sullivan's re-imagining we get to experience Milady's story from her point of view.