Lari's Bookshelf

Click to view on Amazon Chi's Sweet Home   by Konami Kanata I'm not a manga person (not counting my brief, enthusiastic teen affair with Magic Knight Rayearth and Sailor Moon), but when I picked up Chi's Sweet Home for the first time a week back, I could not put it down. Chi is a lost kitten who meets a young boy named "Youhei" of the Yamada family. They decide to take the abandoned kitten home, even though pets are strictly NOT ALLOWED at their apartment complex. There are a lot of cute, quirky things about the kitten that make her endearing. Chi acquires her name when she answers to the Japanese word for urine. She also speaks in "meows" to the humans, but the translations of what he is saying are adorable, since she speaks in a cute-toddlerish-speech-impediment kind of way. As someone who owns a cat, I enjoyed the kitty antics immensely, as they reflect real things kitties do! I'm pretty sure if I didn't own a cat of my own, I wo...

Click to view on Amazon My Friend Dahmer  by Derf Backderf This is a horrible story. It really is. But My Friend Dahmer is a graphic novel written and drawn extremely well. The author/artist recounts his interactions with Jeffrey Dahmer in high school. Dahmer typically goes unnoticed by his teachers and peers. Sure, he is weird. He has this knack for acting like he has cerebral palsy and yelling in the library just to get the librarian riled up. (Note: I did not particularly enjoy the author's portrayal of the librarian, but I digress.) Dahmer likes to collect dead animals he finds, and strip them to the bone, just to see what's inside. But he also enjoys the company of friends at school. The bizarre interactions between him and his friends further illustrates just how strange Dahmer is, even though he is beneath everyone's radar. The story follows his family problems, dark fantasies, and his alcoholism in high school. He tries to numb the darkness within...

Things have been crazy lately. But that doesn't mean I haven't stopped thinking about things, or that I haven't been reading... entirely. I've been on a graphic novel binge, so I thought I'd share some graphic novels that have caught my eye. I also had the opportunity to share some of these with elementary and middle school age kids on my school visits to promote summer reading. So a few of these are geared for younger audiences, but I found them quite appealing as an adult.   Laika by Nick Abadzis This one stuck with me. Yes. It's one of those sad, dog books. But it's so much more. I became fascinated with this doomed little animal that was to be the earth's first biological organism to survive, albeit briefly, in space. It blows my mind that they put together the Sputnik II mission in less than a month, to ride off the positive publicity of Sputnik the First. The narrative was well done, and the visuals of the first and the last panels were s...

Habibi by Craig Thompson Release Date: September 20th, 2011 Publisher: Pantheon Pages: 672 ISBN13: 9780375424144 Craig Thompson doesn't fail to impress with yet another beautifully crafted graphic novel. Habibi is the story of Dodola, who at the age of 9 is sold as a child bride into a marriage with a scribe. While the tragic circumstances that came with this marriage were difficult for the reader to come to terms with, Dodola is able to learn how to read and write from her husband. At the age of 12, her husband is murdered and she is taken captive into a slave ring. This is where she meets Zam, whom she  calls "habibi." He is three years old when they meet, and she is able to escape with him and they live in a boat in the desert. This story doesn't take place in any one era, and the settings vary between medieval and modern eras. As Dodola and Zam face a harsh world, the magic of stories and cultural mythologies is what keeps them together, and give...

I just got a gorgeous book delivered to my door today. I've mentioned how awesome Craig Thompson's Blankets was in a post about graphic novels , well today, I got his latest work, Habibi published by Pantheon Publishing this month. I'm so stoked. Can't wait to read this sucker and review it for you all.

Who says graphic novels can't be stunning? Artistic? Moving? Graphic novels are just another medium to tell a story. And people who knock the format don't understand they are knocking a vessel, a medium for storytelling, and not the actual stories themselves. This is a total injustice to some fabulous works of art out there. The graphic novel memoir is one of my favorite mediums for storytelling. Here are some beautiful graphic novels that I'd eventually like to own. Blankets "Wrapped in the landscape of a blustery Wisconsin winter, Blankets explores the sibling rivalry of two brothers growing up in the isolated country, and the budding romance of two coming-of-age lovers. A tale of security and discovery, of playfulness and tragedy, of a fall from grace and the origins of faith." - GoodReads Rating: 4.09 The Complete Persepolis "Here, in one volume, is Marjane Satrapi's best-selling, internationally acclaimed memoir-in-comic-strips. 'Per...

I vant to suck your blood cowboy! American Vampire, Volume 1 by Scott Snyder, Rafael Albuquerque, and Stephen King Published by Vertigo in 2010 American Vampire is not just another vampire rehash. Scott Snyder and Stephen King are co-authors in a one of a kind introduction to a compelling new addition to the modern vampire mythos. King’s narrative illustrates the creation of the first American Vampire, Skinner Sweet, an outlaw who makes enemies of an elite group of Euro-vamps. Snyder’s storyline takes place in 1925, a few decades later, in Los Angeles where would-be actress Pearl Jones’s life is turned upside down by an encounter with the undead. She is given a chance for bloody revenge, however, when she is made vampire by none other than Skinner Sweet. Conflicts between Euro and American Vamps ensue, and the work delightfully lays down some new vampire rules. Rafael Albuquerque’s crisp lines and colors pop in this graphic novel’s beautifully designed panels. Shocking viole...