Kampung Boy - Lat

Genres: Graphic Novel, Humor
Grades 4 & up

When I was a younger young adult I traveled quite a bit. I wouldn't take huge trips - in fact I had never been outside of the United States until three years ago - but my friends and I traveled to different parts of the country fairly often. While on these road trips it was easy to notice the differences from one place to another - license plates, road signs, clothing styles and accents all varied from place to place. Then one day I came to the realization that no matter how different places were from each other there was always more similarities between places than difference. License plates and road signs may loom different but the cars and the roads are the same. People may be dressed different and sound different but they were still people - they have the same wants and desires regardless of where they live.

Kampung Boy is a comic that tells the story of a boy growing up in a small village in Malaysia. The story gives the reader a lot of insight into the culture of these Malaysian villagers. Their culture is very different than the average Americans. Still, the little boy is very similar to boys in America - his curiosity gets him into trouble with his parents, he goes to school, he likes to hang out with his friends and swim and fish.

This book was a very quick and entertaining read. The story was very funny and the drawings were great. I would recommend this book to any kid particularly those interested in learning about different cultures and young boy that always find themselves getting into trouble.

Drawing a Blank - Daniel Ehrenhaft

Genres: Mystery, Humor
Grades 6 and up

I guess I've read enough books now to know what it is that I like in a story. First, the book has to hook me within the first fifty pages - I'll probably still finish a book that doesn't hook me but reading it becomes more of a chore than a pleasure. Second, the story should be original and unpredictable - I can tolerate a probable story to a certain extent, but if I've read the same story in another book I'm probably not going to enjoy it the second time through. Thirdly, and this is the part I'm most ashamed of, I like a story with a happy ending - I know, this kind of goes against the "predictable" thing I just talked about but it is true, I am a sucker for a good, ol' fashioned happy ending. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, the book must have good characters.

Drawing a Blank by Daniel Ehrenhaft has three of the four qualities listed above. This story has a great main character in Carlton Dunne IV, a junior at a private high school in Connecticut. Carlton is a loner with a number of strange quirks. A few examples:

• his thoughts often come out in "rapid bullet-point succession"
• when confronted with a stressful situation he will stop what he is doing and begin sketching out stories for his comic strip Signy the Superbad.
• is a self-described misanthrope¹

Much of the beginning of the book is spent fleshing Carlton out as a character. While often humorous I found the story started off a bit slow - this book did not have a great hook but it was worth sticking with it because the story eventually picks up. Carlton's dad, an architect obsessed with a centuries old family feud, is kidnapped by a member of the rival clan and taken to Scotland. At the demand of the kidnappers Carlton flies to Scotland to save his dad. Carlton must find and deliver a long lost artifact that will settle the family feud. This task is made difficult because the kidnappers don't exactly tell Carlton what this artifact is, not that he could understand their thick Scottish brogue anyway. Fortunately Carlton meets Aileen, a cute Scottish girl that becomes Carlton's sidekick on his trek to save his dad. The story has a happy ending, something that I found so predictable yet so satisfactory.

All-in-all I liked Drawing a Blank - it started off slow but finished strong and stayed funny throughout. The story is tame enough for middle school kids but I would say it is better suited for older kids that will pick up on the subtle humor and romance Ehrenhaft works into the narrative. If you liked my personal fave, King Dork by Frank Portman, you will probably enjoy this book as well.

¹ misanthrope n. 1. A person who hates mankind 2. A person who avoids human society