LitBit Speaks

Like a bolt from the blue, Jack's little sister Maddy is gone—carried into another realm by an ogre.  When Jack and Lilly follow Maddy’s captor through the portal, they are ready for anything . . . except what they find waiting for them in the floating crossroads between worlds. Even the power of their magic plants may not be enough to get them back to earth alive. Alone and injured, Jack and Lilly must each face their own monsters—as well as giants who grind the bones of human children to feed their “beast” and a fearsome goblin king in the sewers down below. But when Jack finds himself in a tough spot, help comes from the most unlikely person: the goblin king! This is the sequel to Mighty Jack and it is fabulous! There's the action and adventure that we've come to expect from Ben Hatke. The illustrations are detailed, colourful, and the plot will keep pretty much anyone's attention! The story captures a really important and interesting time in young people...

Nobody's ever really explained the Spill. Was it an angelic visitation? A nanotech accident? A porthole opening from another world? Whatever it was, no one's allowed in the Spill Zone these days except government scientists and hazmat teams. But a few intrepid explorers know how to sneak through the patrols and steer clear of the dangers inside the Zone. Addison Merrick is one such explorer, dedicated to finding out what happened that night, and to unraveling the events that took her parents and left her little sister mute and disconnected from the world. I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I was sent a copy of this graphic novel. I was thinking maybe something to do with a nuclear meltdown and some kind of crime-fighting (judging from the cover alone) and then I started reading through and was blown away. This book is creepy, twisted, beautifully illustrated, and super compelling. I should warn people that it's not a one-off; the ending is not complete ...

It is, perhaps, the perfect video game. Simple yet addictive, Tetris delivers an irresistible, unending puzzle that has players hooked. Play it long enough and you’ll see those brightly colored geometric shapes everywhere. You’ll see them in your dreams. Alexey Pajitnov had big ideas about games. In 1984, he created Tetris in his spare time while developing software for the Soviet government. Once Tetris emerged from behind the Iron Curtain, it was an instant hit. Nintendo, Atari, Sega―game developers big and small all wanted Tetris. A bidding war was sparked, followed by clandestine trips to Moscow, backroom deals, innumerable miscommunications, and outright theft. In this graphic novel, Box Brown untangles the complex history and delves deep into the role games play in art, culture, and commerce.  This is a very thorough and intriguing history of the game of Tetris, told in graphic novel format, and made accessible to audiences of varying ages and levels of interest. Though ...

The zoo isn't what it used to be. It's run down, and Hippo hardly ever gets any visitors. So he decides to set off for the outside with his friend Red Panda. To make it in the human world, Hippo will have to become a Hippopotamister: he'll have to act like a human, get a job, and wear a hat as a disguise. He's a good employee, whether he's a construction worker, a hair stylist, or a sous chef. But what he really needs is a job where he can be himself. I remember the first time I saw a book by John Patrick Green, except "Patrick" wasn't on the front cover, so I was all, "Um, when did John Green get into graphic novels?" I know now that it's not that  John Green. I don't know what this little diatribe has to do with anything, but I know when I started it, I thought I had a trajectory in mind. Oh well, on to the review! Hippopotamister  is just plain fun! This is a quest story in many respects, and one that contains some great ...

Jack might be the only kid in the world who's dreading summer. But he's got a good reason: summer is when his single mom takes a second job and leaves him at home to watch his autistic kid sister, Maddy. It's a lot of responsibility, and it's boring, too, because Maddy doesn't talk. Ever. But then, one day at the flea market, Maddy does talk—to tell Jack to trade their mom's car for a box of mysterious seeds. It's the best mistake Jack has ever made. What starts as a normal little garden out back behind the house quickly grows up into a wild, magical jungle with tiny onion babies running amok, huge, pink pumpkins that bite, and, on one moonlit night that changes everything…a dragon. I love Hatke's work. Each one has its own charm, it's own power. Mighty Jack  is a fabulous new take on the Jack and the Beanstalk tale, with strong characters, intriguing new dynamics and new and more menacing evils than even the original versions of the story. Jac...