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

If You Like...KPop Demon Hunters

By
KPop Demon Hunters has been one of the most talked-about movies of the summer. If you loved this movie as much as I did, you don't want the magic (or the music) to stop. Try reading these books that touch on some of the same topics and themes as the animated hit! Brick Dust and Bones By M. R. Fournet New York: Feiwel and Friends, 2023. Fiction. 247 pages. Orphaned Marius works in the family business--as their cemetery's ghost caretaker. However, Marius also moonlights as a monster hunter in order to earn the costly Mystic currency he needs to bring his mother back from the dead. As the window to bring his mother back begins to close, Marius's exploits get more and more dangerous, and he may have set his sights on a monster too big to handle on his own. Like Mira, Marius longs for familial connection, and his work as a monster hunter will satisfy the thrill of demon hunting for fans the movie. Where's Halmoni? By Julie J. Kim Seattle, WA: Little Bigfoot, 2017. Comics. W...
Post a Comment
Read more

Review: Kareem Between

By
  Kareem Between By Shifa Saltagi Safadi New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2024. Fiction. 324 pages.  Kareem loves football and as he gets ready to start seventh grade he dreams of someday becoming the first Syrian American NFL player. Seventh grade is not off to a great start for Kareem, after football tryouts don't go as he had planned, his best friend moves away, and his mom returns to Syria to help bring his sick grandfather to the US for treatment. So when Austin, the quarterback and coach's son, offers to talk to his dad and get Kareem on the football team in the spring, if he will cheat and do his homework for him, Kareem agrees. Kareem really wants to fit in at school and he is desperate to find a friend, but deep down he knows that doing Austin's homework isn't the right thing to do. And to make things harder, Kareem's mom asks him to be a friend to Fadi, a Syrian Christian refugee. He knows he should stand up for Fadi and help him adjust to the new school,...
Post a Comment
Read more

Review: Just Shine!

By
Just Shine! Written by Sonia Sotomayor Illustrated by Jacqueline Alcantara New York, NY : Philomel, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2025. Picture Book. At the beginning of each new year, a lot of people like to set goals for themselves. Often, these tend to be number-oriented: a specified number of minutes reading, a certain number of steps walked each day, or even goals related to saving money. I have often felt very intimidated by number-oriented goals, and shy away from making them. In recent conversations with friends and family, we have talked about goals that are more skill-related or focused on bringing joy into the world and our personal lives. In line with that way of thinking, I am recommending this book to everyone! This book would be amazing for discussing goals with people who prefer to have goals that are different from traditional "number-oriented" ones. The cover and the artwork left me feeling happy and very invested in the story the author wanted to ...
Post a Comment
Read more