Skip to main content

The Cardboard Kingdom

Image
By


The Cardboard Kingdom 
By Chad Sell
Alfred A. Knopf, 2018. Graphic Novel 281 p.

When summer rolls around and kids say they are board, they can learn from the various characters in this book. Each kid has a different persona that they take on in an epic summer-long adventure in the Cardboard Kingdom (basically their imagination personified in costumes, buildings, and props that they built with cardboard). The thing I especially like about this book is that it isn’t just about their imaginative personas—there are bits about the kids’ real lives as well. For example, the Gargoyle also has a mom and a dad that are arguing and the dad is moving out. The Big Banshee has a Meemaw who doesn’t like how her granddaughter is loud and full of too much energy. The Mad Scientist wants to please her father. The Robot and the Bully (who is not raised by a parent rather by his Nanna) aren’t as good at making friends. Basically, there are a lot of bits that go into the kids and their home lives that play into how they create their imaginative world. Also, there are all sorts of different types of kids—without a load of attention drawn to that. The Mad Scientist responds to her dad when he speaks Spanish—and it feels like a normal part of the story (not a “hey look, we just included a bit in a foreign language” type of moment). Many of the kids are all different types of ethnicities and some give a nod to the LGBTQ diversity as well; however, it isn’t a forced moment. The stories are just a collection of what feels like a real-world type of setting with a cool group of kids. And after someone reads this book they just might want to go out and create a new world all their own.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Stand Tall by Joan Bauer

By DeeDee
Stand Tall By Siena Siegel by Joan Bauer Putnam, 2002, 182 pgs Realistic Fiction Tree is 12 years old and over 6 feet tall. That would be great if he were a basketball player, but he is not. Dealing with his unusual size is not Tree's only challenge. Tree's parents have recently gone through a divorce, and his grandfather has had his leg amputated as the result of an old Vietnam War injury. The strength of this book is the characterizations. All of the main characters are dimensional and sympathetic. Bauer sets the characters in real and often funny family situations. Best of all is the character of Tree. He is boy with a heart to match his stature. This is a great book for boys or girls ages 9-12, as a read aloud or for individual reading. This book could also be a good Rx book for children whose families are going through divorce, or for anyone who feels like they don't fit in.
Post a Comment
Read more

Review: The New Girl

By
The New Girl By Cassandra Calin New York: Graphix, 2024. Comic. 261 pages. 12-year-old Lia and her family have just moved from Romania to Montreal, and she's doing her best to keep up with the changes. But, she's homesick. She misses the rest of her family, her friends, and her favorite Romanian treats. She doesn't speak French and her English is shaky, which makes it hard to make friends, even in her international immersion class. And she's dealing with super painful menstrual cramps every month. But before long, Lia starts to hit her stride. She befriends the other bilingual girls in her class, she gets a spot as the artist for her school's magazine, and even has a new crush -- Julien. Though she may be the new girl, Lia is starting to fit in. This slice of life graphic novel is an adorable choice for middle grade readers and young teens. Lia is a likable protagonist and readers will have little difficulty relating to her adjustment to school. The text speaks to a...
Post a Comment
Read more

Review: Cincinnati Lee, Curse Breaker

By
  Cincinnati Lee, Curse Breaker By Heidi Heilig New York: Greenwillow Books, 2025. Fiction. 291 pages. Thanks to Cincinnati Lee's no good, dirty rotten, artifact stealing great great great grandfather, Cincinnati's family is now cursed and Cincinnati feels like it's up to her to break the curse. Which involves trying to steal the artifacts back from museums that her grandfather robbed from graves and archeological sites around the world and return them to their countries of origin. But when Cincinnati's first artifact stealing mission goes awry, she decides it might be more effective to steal an all-powerful artifact herself that she can use to break the curse - The Spear of Destiny. Unfortunately her race for the spear will pit her against art smugglers and thieves intent on finding the ancient artifact themselves. If you are looking for an Indiana Jones read-alike, this is the perfect for you! Heavy on the adventure with similar levels of mysticism to those seen in th...
Post a Comment
Read more