Every Thursday, during the month of October, join Aly at Kid Lit Frenzy, Franki & Mary Lee of A Year of Reading, and Tammy & Clare from Assessment in Perspective as we celebrate graphic novels and comic books. To read our Top 10 reasons to join in, check out the Nerdy Book Club post, here. To link up your reviews and connect with everyone participating in the #GNCelebration, visit our #GNCelebration Google Community.
The Fall of the House of West
by Paul Pope, J. T. Petty, David Rubín (Illustrator)
First Second (October 13, 2015)
Audience: Ages 10 to 14 years old
Comics * Super Heroes * Adventure
IndieBound * WorldCat
About the book:
Aurora West is on the verge of solving the mystery of her mother's death, but it's hard keeping her efforts a secret from her grieving father, the legendary monster-hunter Haggard West. Between her school work and her hours training and hunting with her dad, Aurora is hard-pressed to find time to be a secret sleuth. But she's nothing if not persistent.
What Aurora doesn't realize is that she's about to blow open a secret that may very well destroy what's left of her family...and, indeed, all of Arcopolis.
My thoughts on the book:
Paul Pope, JT Petty, and David Rubín are back with another comic book in the world of the Battling Boy. Aurora West is the daughter of Haggard West and the story continues on from The Rise of Aurora West. The West family have a history of battling monsters and ghouls and Aurora has been in training to carry on with the family tradition but also to revenge her mother's death.
Told with black and white illustrations, readers learn about Aurora through flashbacks and memories and stories. At times, I had to do some re-reading in order to make the change from present day to the past. This is where the use of color and black & white could make this change clearer for readers.
Though this series has not yet hit it's stride, it does draw you in and makes you want to keep reading and learn more. Aurora is a strong, determined teenager, and along with her father and other characters in the series, they are real yet flawed. It is exactly those flaws that help readers relate to the characters and keep wanting to read on to see what happens.
At some point, I would love to see this graphic novel produced in color. The black and white images at times make it a challenge to see all of the details and I think the use of color would make the whole book just pop.
If you decide to read The Fall of the House of West, I would suggest starting with The Rise of Aurora West, Both The Rise of Aurora West and The Fall of the House of West are prequels to The Battling Boy.
Pick up a copy of The Rise of Aurora West or The Fall of the House of West at your local indie bookstore or neighborhood public library.
Don't forget to join us:
On November 1, 2015 at 8:00 EST, we will culminate this celebration with a Twitter Chat featuring Terry Thompson the author of Adventures in Graphica: Using Comics and Graphic Novels to Teach Comprehension, 2-6.