The First Tale: The Robe of Skulls The Second Tale: The Bag of Bones The Third Tale: Heart of Glass The Fourth Tale: The Flight of Dragons Since today is Independence Day, I figured the time is right to explore our colonial roots and see what one of...
So phenomenally successful is the Death Note series, it's available in multiformats in the U.S. alone. Not even considering all the endless spin-off enterprises like anime, films, and games, Death Note on the page comes in single volumes (12 total), or a complete box set, or even...
Two brothers, a girlfriend, and a part-time fox set up what will certainly be a multi-volume, another-world adventure from internationally bestselling Cornelia Funke, creator of Inkworld, her last alternate universe series. While definitely filled with swash-buckling fun and heart-thumping adventure, Reckless aims at an older...
As my children get more tech-savvy which means I become more of a Luddite, their favorite exasperated phrase seems to be "Maaaah-ahm, you just do this!" So in one of my son's 'just' moments, I...
If you had any expectations from seeing Mark Haddon's name on the cover that this might be a deeply thoughtful novel about family relations, you'd be rather surprised. This is not Haddon's 2003 breakout title, A...
Parents might recognize (and appreciate) the derivative homage to children's classic Harold and the Purple Crayon, Hayao Miyazaki/Studio Ghibli's animated Howl's Moving Castle, and more ...
My tween son grabbed the third installment of Kazu Kibuishi's inventive, adventurous series before I could even say 'three,' then lamented at the six months he would have to wait for Book Four, Book Four: "Do I really have to wait so long?" followed with "Can't...
Warning: I can't find any promises of a volume 2 (or 3, 4, or more!) anywhere in, on, or around this book. Nothing in the publicist's note, either! Uh-oh ...
You know how sometimes when you're not quite asleep, you think you're maybe dreaming, but then you're convinced you're really awake even when you're not? You know ...
Yuki Tachibana (whose first name means 'snow,' and last name means 'standing flower') is not your average first-grader. He draws strange pictures on his desk that unnerve his other classmates. He can see things no one else can. He talks to the invisible Super Star,...
Once upon a time, Kenji wanted to be a rock star guitarist. But somehow, in 1997, he's ended up managing a convenience store with his cranky mother and his missing sister's baby usually strapped on his back. Then he gets word that Donkey, one of...
As this volume is currently the last one available in English, I DID try and save and savor it ...
Atom's protector, Professor Ochanomizu, is under police protection, but that doesn't stop the dangerously unpredictable Goji, who created the Persian Kingdom's robot army for the Central Asian War, from making his way into the good professor's home and threatening the safety of his daughter and...
Welcome to an alternative premodern Edo Japan where women do everything – including rule! Girl power all the way! Without a cure, the mysterious Redface Pox has ravaged the country's male population until it finally "stabilized at about one-fourth that of the female." Men have become...
The already well-established X-Men franchise of books (and films) gets a somewhat peculiar makeover in the first of a new series designed for the middle grade/13+ crowd. "Don't fix what ain't broke," comes to mind. But that might be an old-age reaction ...
Ruka, a star handball player, gets a little too rough and ends up kicked off the team. Frustrated, she heads to big city Tokyo where she thinks she might find the sea, and instead meets a mysterious young boy named Umi (whose name happens to...
Two years after her father is killed in a car accident, Emily moves with her mother and younger brother Navin to a faraway family home, once owned by her great-grandfather who disappeared decades ago. On the top floor of the neglected house, she finds a...
Welcome to a chilling debut series, which introduces readers to a strange new world in which the government knows exactly when you're going to die. As children are immunized upon entering school, a random sampling of the immunization syringes contain exploding capsules which will prove fatal on...
Astro Boy, the little-boy-robot-who-could is probably Osamu Tezuka's most recognizable creation. Known as the "godfather of manga," Tezuka created Tetsuwan Atom (Mighty Atom) in Japan way back in 1951, and continued to present his manga adventures for decades. Renamed Astro Boy in the West, in 1963,...
HOLY MOLY! And I was worried that things couldn't get better after Volume 001. Can we say WOW together? Even if you're not a manga fan, go get this series. I grabbed the original Tezuka Astro Boy series to read again, too, while I'm waiting for...
