2023 EDIT:
Reread: Perhaps I'm too old for this. It is a very kiddie book.
It keeps switching on and off between being poetry and not, which makes the whole thing look messy, inconsistent and amateurish. There's less prose and more comic as it progresses, as it were, with each story, which benefits it in my book (heh).
Needed more of the Scary Godmother herself, too.
Final Score: 3/5
Original Review:
Boo.
Yeah, 'Scary Godmother' is cute. No, more than that. This Halloween comic for kids is freaking adorable.
I wanted to read more of Jill Thompson's stuff after the triumphant 'Wonder Woman: The True Amazon', and her 'Scary Godmother' stories fit wonderfully with her watercoloured art - it's surreal yet loopy and sweet all at once. There are surprisingly subtle little touches throughout in terms of story and characters.
It's a comic collection for children so it's not really scary, but there is the message about not fearing - not judging - anything or anyone just because you don't understand them. Scary Godmother even says, in her first story, "Monsters? HA HA! Why, some of my best friends are monsters!" Up close and personal you might find they can be fun and friendly. Those who are perceived as monsters can be as human as you, and that is an important thing for children to take away from this. "Freaks" are not wrong or abnormal, judging and bullying are. Also don't give in to peer pressure.
The Scary Godmother is like the Santa Claus of Halloween - a green-skinned, frizzy-haired witch just ripe for cosplay (and really, who wouldn't want healthy green skin?), it is she who makes Halloween into what it is every year with her magic and travels from her monster world of the Fright Side. She conducts and prepares all creatures for their scares, sets haunted houses and spooky forests up like on a stage, and vacuums the arches in Halloween cats! Like Miss Frizzle from 'The Magic School Bus' and Mary Poppins, children can easily latch onto this eccentric adult female character.
The little girl protagonist, Hannah Marie, is the main instigator to the book's adorableness. She is a scared trick-or-treater who turns brave, resourceful and responsible in later stories - she even rides Scary Godmother's broomstick! I could identify with the chubby-cheeked, big-eyed Hannah through a young version of myself and not only in looks. Her baby sister Ellie is also a sweetie, for the few panels she appears in.
The stories are fun, creative, and contain good messages - except that following your crush and sneaking around as a secret admirer? Yeah, kids, there is a word for that: Stalking, and it's wrong. Don't do it! Even Scary Godmother thinks it's creepy! She gets that it's scary, and not in a good way! 'Scary Godmother' also has bits of prose written on every page as well as word balloons for its graphic novel format, and on-and-off again it goes into rhyme. One of the stories is all in rhyme. It's not that I mind much - it works well and the rhyming scheme is clever when it shows up - it's just inconsistent. Speaking of inconsistency, at the beginning Hannah's mother tells her not to be afraid to go out tick-or-treating because the Scary Godmother will protect her. But when Hannah meets the witch, who then introduces herself, Hannah doesn't know what a Scary Godmother is. Even if used for encouragement by a parent, how does the mum know about any Scary Godmother when it appears that nobody else did before?
But what an ooky-spooky book, full of nooks and crannies: pumpkins, candy, shadows, cobwebs, ghosts, a vampire family, skeletons, a pizza-loving werewolf with a human mum, cats, and nice surprises to go with your treat. And all sorts of tricks.
'Scary Godmother' - To be read to kids every Halloween.
Final Score: 4/5
No comments:
Post a Comment