What I've Been Reading Lately

All of these were obtained via my local library.

The Wild Robot by Peter Brown

I saw this on a promo poster at the library and it seemed like something my 9 year old son would like. I thought I would read the first little bit and then skip around some, just to make sure it seemed appropriate for my son. But once I started, I just kept going. I found it pretty engaging, though of course simply written. It's an entertaining tale about survival, friendship, community, and scientific observation. I'd say this is spot on for my son. I'd recommend it for young readers probably 8-12, depending on maturity, ability, and interest.

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These next 3 came out of a post from @modernzorker about TPBs that were self contained stories needing no prior knowledge. I was not familiar with any of these prior to his post.

Batman: The Long Halloween

This was a solid crime tale, much like I imagine the original Detective Comics stories might have been if written today. This picks up the story where Batman: Year One left off (so Batman is still early in his crime-fighting career), but you don't really need to have read that to enjoy The Long Halloween. It's pretty long, but doesn't feel unnecessarily so. The length is used to lay groundwork and tell a complete, self-contained story. The ending felt a little awkward, but that's really my only complaint. It was a good read and worth picking up.

Batman: Hush

I really liked the art, being a pretty prototypical example of modern Jim Lee, but I found the pacing of the story a bit rushed. Maybe I was missing some subtle foreshadowing, but things just seemed to come out of nowhere, with no real setup to speak of. I think this would have benefitted from another several pages worth of material to set up some payoffs/reveals later in the book. They're very different books with different purposes, but if you were going to pick only one of these Batman TPBs to check out, I'd say go with Long Halloween.

Deadline

This was a short read, but worth reading for the different perspective it gives on the superhero genre. While there are some appearances by familar faces, such as The Human Torch (aka Johnny Storm), it mostly focuses on a new character called The Judge, but the story is told through the eyes of a reporter for the Daily Bugle. I liked this approach, but would have preferred the story revolve around some already known heroes and events from the Marvel Universe. I really think they could have made a whole series using this approach. Still, I enjoyed it and would recommend it.