Book-It 'o11! Book #48
The Fifty Books Challenge, year three! (Years one and two, just in case you're curious.) This was a library request.
Title: Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword by Barry Deutsch
Details: Copyright 2010, Amulet Books
Synopsis (By Way of Back Cover): "Mirka Herschberg is a spunky, strong-willed eleven-year-old who isn’t interested in knitting lessons from her stepmother, or how-to-find-a-husband advice from her sister, or you-better-not warnings from her brother. There’s only one thing Mirka does want: to fight dragons! But she'll need a sword and therein lies the tale!"
Why I Wanted to Read It: I wasn't aware of two things when requesting this book. One, that it's a book intended for children, and two, that it's actually a web comic (or at least it was at first). However, it was generally well-received so I figured I'd give it a try.
How I Liked It: The book moves along at an entertaining pace and Mirka is, for the most part, a likeable, relatable heroine. The author doesn't quite have kids' dialog down and the patter between Mirka and her siblings isn't so much amusingly adult (Calvin and Hobbes) and just kind of awkwardly obvious in its maturity (whilst taunting her potential future as a wife, Mirka's ten-year-old stepsister cracks "[Y]ou're eleven! What are you going to do, make your husband mud pies?"). Also noteworthy about the dialog is the interweaving of traditional Jewish phrases. Translations are offered and the words and phrases can occasionally look labored and unnecessary.
Mirka and her siblings don't so much act like children (ala Beverly Cleary's Ramona, for example) as act like children might act in more rote cartoons about children. The style of art (a bit too streamlined and cartoony for my tastes) doesn't help.
Still, there's a winning quality in Hereville in Mirka's metaphoric-seeming conquering of dragons and trolls (her own struggles to fit in and master adult skills) and in the sensitive underbelly of her story. Her grief over losing her mother and her comfort at the hands of her seemingly constantly argumentative stepmother gives Mirka and her story surprising and needed depth.
There's still a lot left unfinished, but given the fact it's primarily a web comic offers the possibility that this is merely the first in a series of Mirka books and the questions about her life will unfold with both answers and further questions. Hopefully the author's style of art will evolve as well.
Notable: The author offers various character designs in the back of the book which he identifies as the troll Mirka fights at the end of the story. The troll's original designs actually recall several characters in the finished product.
Title: Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword by Barry Deutsch
Details: Copyright 2010, Amulet Books
Synopsis (By Way of Back Cover): "Mirka Herschberg is a spunky, strong-willed eleven-year-old who isn’t interested in knitting lessons from her stepmother, or how-to-find-a-husband advice from her sister, or you-better-not warnings from her brother. There’s only one thing Mirka does want: to fight dragons! But she'll need a sword and therein lies the tale!"
Why I Wanted to Read It: I wasn't aware of two things when requesting this book. One, that it's a book intended for children, and two, that it's actually a web comic (or at least it was at first). However, it was generally well-received so I figured I'd give it a try.
How I Liked It: The book moves along at an entertaining pace and Mirka is, for the most part, a likeable, relatable heroine. The author doesn't quite have kids' dialog down and the patter between Mirka and her siblings isn't so much amusingly adult (Calvin and Hobbes) and just kind of awkwardly obvious in its maturity (whilst taunting her potential future as a wife, Mirka's ten-year-old stepsister cracks "[Y]ou're eleven! What are you going to do, make your husband mud pies?"). Also noteworthy about the dialog is the interweaving of traditional Jewish phrases. Translations are offered and the words and phrases can occasionally look labored and unnecessary.
Mirka and her siblings don't so much act like children (ala Beverly Cleary's Ramona, for example) as act like children might act in more rote cartoons about children. The style of art (a bit too streamlined and cartoony for my tastes) doesn't help.
Still, there's a winning quality in Hereville in Mirka's metaphoric-seeming conquering of dragons and trolls (her own struggles to fit in and master adult skills) and in the sensitive underbelly of her story. Her grief over losing her mother and her comfort at the hands of her seemingly constantly argumentative stepmother gives Mirka and her story surprising and needed depth.
There's still a lot left unfinished, but given the fact it's primarily a web comic offers the possibility that this is merely the first in a series of Mirka books and the questions about her life will unfold with both answers and further questions. Hopefully the author's style of art will evolve as well.
Notable: The author offers various character designs in the back of the book which he identifies as the troll Mirka fights at the end of the story. The troll's original designs actually recall several characters in the finished product.