Taking Flight, X-Force and The Wimpy Kid Debate

Hi all my fellow travelers in "The Land of Blog." It is good to talk to you once again and I hope you are all doing well. Well let's get down to business. First off, I want to hear from some of you out there in defense of Greg H of "The Diary of a Wimpy Kid" Fame. Yes, as I stated before Greg is not the nicest guy in the world, but look at his crazy family. Can you really blame him? An older brother whose sole purpose in life seems to be to make him miserable. A younger brother who gets everything he wants. Parents who just don't understand him. His life and surrounding are at the very least strangely interesting. Plus tell me which gets more laughs kindness or naughtiness. I have not read "Milo: Sticky Notes and Brain Freeze" by the terrific Alan Silberberg yet, but I will make sure it is the next book I pick up. Love ya Greg and The Wimpy Kid series!!!! Rock on!!!!!!!!!!

                   Funny!!!!!!!!!!

                           Pretty funny too!!!!!!

You make the call!!!!!

Now on to some recent Graphic Novel reads:


Flight, Volume 7 edited by Kazu Kibuishi - The entire Flight series, I believe there are 8 volumes out as of this date, are just an incredible breathtaking collection of stories by many different authors and illustrators. My favorites in this addition are many, but I will mention just a few for brevity's sake. "Kenneth Shuri and The Big Sweep" by J P Ahonen I think is my absolute favorite. In this instalment Kenneth, an unemployed Ninja, has taken a job as a janitor to make ends meet for his family (his daughter named Jess and wife named Barbara). Everything is going fine until Jess takes down the big bully at school with extreme prejudice with nine forks thrown into his abdomen followed by a brutal kick to the head. It seems that Kenneth has been telling Jess fairy tale stories at bedtime that are a bit violent to say the lease (lots of Kung Foo Action). His wife is furious at him and to make matters worse, the bully's farther hires an evil ninja to take out Kenneth. Not a good situation all around for Kenneth. Read the rest to see how everything turns out. Some of my other favorites are "King of Beast: What's Yours is Mine!" by Paul Harmon. This one is about a bounty hunter named Naga and her pet/friend Kala, who happens to be an escaped snake formerly the property of one Medusa. Naga is after the terrifying monster known as the King of Beast and Medusa is after her to get Kala back. Really great art work and a great story. The GN also has a Jellyaby story by Kean Soo that really rocks. Like I said earlier, I could go on and on about this GN so check it out. This GN has stories appropriate for a wide age range. Some are all ages, while others are not. Because of this I recommend this GN for those 13 years old and up.

                 Jellyaby!!!!!

Naga from King of Beast!!!!!

X-Force: Angels and Demons by Kyle, Yost and Crain - Okay this is The X-Men taken up a notch in intensity and ugliness.  The mutant population has dwindled to below 200 worldwide. Desperate times call for desperate measure. Cyclops is tired of waiting for the newest threat to attack mutants and he wants these threats stopped before they can occur and the bad guys taken out of the game permanently. So of course he goes to Wolverine to lead a secret group, secret even from the X-Men to deal with these threats. He recruits, much to Logan's chagrin X-23, Warpath, Wolfsbane and Elixir. Wolverine agrees in principle but does not want these others involved because of the emotional toll he knows it will take on them as they all become stone cold killers doing whatever is needed to get the job done. Their first mission is against the fanatical Purifiers, responsible for killing more mutants than any other organization in history, lead by Brother Mathew Risman. If this were not bad enough Risman brings another major threat to all mutants into play with the restoring of of the ultimate sentinel Bastion. Things get even worse when Wolfsbane is kidnapped by the Purifiers and put into the fanatical hands of her father who believes she is a demon that needs to be destroyed and the X-Man Angel is attacked, his wings removed and he transforms back into the very dangerous Archangel. It's a wild ride all. This book is labeled with a Parental Advisory for language and violence, so I would recommend it for older teens 15 or 16 years old.

That's all for now people.

Peace all,

Library Ninja Bill