Reading Rants! Out of the Ordinary Teen Booklists!

Ahoy, maties! If you’re looking for a top notch adventure with despicable pirates, clever girls, courageous dudes, brave dogs, horrifying sea monsters and cursed skulls, well, you’ve come to the right place. Aaron Renier of Spiral-Bound fame has drawn and penned a gorgeous full-color GN that chronicles the tall tale of one Walker Bean, who is darned lucky to be unsinkable because he has an enormous talent for getting into trouble. It all starts when Walker’s beloved grandpa falls deathly ill. Turns out he set eyes on an enchanted skull that came from the deep underwater trench between the mysterious Mango Islands. The trench is home to the dreaded merwich sisters Tartessa and Remora, and the skull was part of their endless collection of bones of the dead who had the misfortune of meeting up with them. Anyone who dares look at the skull either sees the future, becomes fatally ill or both. Walker’s grandpa knows the only way to save himself and his seaside town is to get the bonehead back to its cave sweet cave. Because when he looked into the empty eye sockets, he also saw into his future. And what he saw was the two hideous sisters climbing out of their watery hole and coming to claim their property, destroying everything in their path. Walker’s dad, a navy officer, thinks it’s all bunk and wants to sell the valuable bone to the highest bidder. So Grandpa begs Walker to hide the skull and find a way to return it to its gruesome owners. Walker sets off, but is soon sidelined by everything from a boatload of pirates to a sassy sword wielding deckhand named Genoa who may be a girl but who can still kick his butt six ways to Sunday. It’s going to take all of Walker’s considerable powers of imagination to figure out a way to outsmart his father, save his grandpa and keep the merwitches down with the Titanic where they belong. Can he do it? Of course, because we already know from the title that Mr. Walker Bean is UNSINKABLE! Bespectacled Walker is a lovable nerd hero of the first order, with his journals full of invention ideas and his, well, less than “Situation” physique. This fast-paced, hyper-detailed action adventure is fun for the whole family. I mean it, I can seriously see both your bratty little sibs and your tyrannical parents trying to arm wrestle you for it, it’s just that entertaining. I couldn’t stop pouring over the intricately detailed panels, especially the double-paged spreads, which are eye-popping in color and scope and reminded me in the best possible way of one my most favorite childhood reads.  Sailing into a library or bookstore near you September 2010.

Ever wonder how we got here? How the Earth was formed, how we human beans popped into existence? There are several versions of the creation myth–you can take your pick when it comes to explaining how we emerged from the Great Black Void: Christian, Hindu, Egyptian, Norse, the list could go on and on. But my favorite has got to be that wacky Greek version, so recently made popular by former middle school teacher Rick Riordan. But forget Percy Jackson, he’s just some johnny-come-lately compared to the dude who made the lightning in the first place, the very first international playboy and rebellious teenager, Zeus. Artist and author George O’Connor provides readers with a crash course in the Greek creation myth, which basically consists of Mother Earth and Father Sky giving birth to some big nasty gods, including Kronos, who wants to keep all the temporal goodies for himself. So every time his wife has a baby, he swallows it so it can’t grow up to challenge him. Eventually his wife gets sick of giving up her babies for dinner, so she hides one. Zeus is raised in secret by hot nymphs (which will explain his later lady-killer ways) and tricks his father into swallowing a poison plant which makes him vomit up all Zeus’s sibs, now fully grown and totally pissed off! What happens next is the story of how Zeus claims his father’s throne with the help of his super sibs (more about them later) and gets the lightning that Percy’s gotta find in couple thousand years. O’Connor’s hyper-kinetic art is old school comic book illustration, full of action, energy and bursts of color. For those of you also interested in more than just a good celestial butt-kicking, there’s also a helpful Greek god family tree in the front and some fun extras in the back, including minor god and goddess profiles and some cool websites you might want to visit. For more Greek superhero action, pair this GN with the new and improved Clash of the Titans.

The crackerjack team of Hale, Hale & Hale are back with another rootin’ tootin’ graphic adventure of that wild girl Rapunzel and her trouble-making friends. This volume covers the back-story of ‘Punzie’s scheming sidekick, Jack. Before he met Rapunzel out west, Jack made his living swindling chumps in the big city with his partner Prudence, a stylish pixie with a serious attitude and an addiction to fancy hats. He was forced to skip town after a problematic beanstalk, a golden-egg laying goose and an angry giant named Blunderboar made it unsafe to return home to his hand-wringing, bakery-owning mama. After hightailing it west and meeting Rapunzel, Jack knows it’s time to head back home and make things right. Except in his absence, the fearsome giant Blunderboar has set up a corrupt shadow government and taken Jack’s mother prisoner in order to force her to bake his human-bone meal bread. Now Jack and Rapunzel must team up with Prudence and verbose muckraking journalist Frederick Sparksmith III to uncover Blunderboar’s citywide scheme and prove to the people once and for all what a, well, BOAR Blunderboar really is! All the while, Jack is trying to work up the courage to tell Rapunzel how he really feels about her. But will silver-tongued Frederick sway her heart instead? This action-packed sequel is every bit as entertaining as its predecessor, and then some. Jack’s big city, in contrast to Rapunzel’s Wild West, is a bustling technological marvel, which adds a little steam punk to the whole whimsical affair. The imaginative team of Hale to the 3rd power envisions their fantastical teeming urbanity as a magnet for diverse immigrants of every color and creed; from Native and African Americans to fairies and porcine half-men. Thanks to Nathan Hale’s meticulous attention to detail, each full color panel is a little work of art. This GN was so much fun that just writing this review makes me want to read it again! Batten down the hatches and tie up the dirigibles–this is one wild ride.