Calamity Jack. By Shannon and Dean Hale. Illustrated by Nathan Hale. 2010. Bloomsbury USA. 144 pages.
Welcome to the second day of the Calamity Jack blog tour. Today I bring you my review of Calamity Jack, a companion book to Rapunzel's Revenge. Both graphic novels are twists on old-and-familiar stories. Rapunzel. Jack and the Beanstalk. Hale takes old characters, and breathes new life into them. Giving them oddly modern adventures. While I must admit that I loved Rapunzel's Revenge more than Calamity Jack, I did enjoy it for what it was.
I think of myself as a criminal mastermind...with an unfortunate amount of bad luck. I was born to scheme. See? You can tell just by looking at me. I wasted no time. My first true scheme was at age two.
In Rapunzel's Revenge, Jack was, well, so-clearly-the-good guy. In Calamity Jack, we see that Jack doesn't think of himself in quite that way. In fact, up until the moment he hooked up with Rapunzel, well, he always considered himself a bad boy. He was oh-so-good at being a bad boy. So he's having to redefine himself (in a way) as he's put to new tests and struggles through new adventures.
Calamity Jack tells Jack's back story. How he came to be Jack. Yes, we see how Jack came to grow that beanstalk. We get the real why of it. We also see how he came to be at Rapunzel's side. But it also continues the story. The second half of this graphic novel tells of new adventures shared with Rapunzel and Jack. So it is both a companion and sequel.
What does this one offer readers? Action. Adventure. Fun.
To see what others are saying about Calamity Jack...
Sally Apokedak, Reading is my Superpower, firesidemusings.blogspot.com, Through the Looking Glass Book Review , Booking Mama, Cafe of Dreams, Becky’s Book Reviews, The Hungry Readers, , My Own Little Corner of the World, Book Blather, GreenBeanTeenQueen, Book Crumbs , Abby (the) Librarian, Dolce Bellezza, Homeschoolbuzz.com, The Book Cellar, Carrie’s YA Bookshelf, Bookshelf Monstrosity, Everyday Reading, Frenetic Reader, KidzBookBuzz.com
© Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews
5 comments:
I'm so happy to see more graphic novels getting attention. This one sounds like a lot of fun - both in the series do!
Hmmm... I think I need to promise myself it won't take as long for me to get to reading this one as it did Rapunzel's Revenge!
I really enjoyed this read. It's a little out of my comfort zone but I'm glad I took the chance.
I love that they are continuing this! The first one was great!
I'm glad you enjoyed this one, Becky!
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