El Deafo by CeCe Bell

Genre: Junior Non-Fiction Graphic Memoir

When Cece is around four years old, she gets sick. Really sick. Her parents rush her to hospital and discover she has meningitis. When CeCe recovers from the initial illness, she starts to realise something. She can’t hear. Her meningitis left her alive, but deaf.

This memoir is gorgeous and informative and funny all at once. It tells CeCe’s story of growing up in a world that has suddenly become silent, with adorable bunnies as the characters, and spectacular visual techniques such as fading text in speech bubbles as CeCe’s hearing aids fail.

We follow CeCe as she grows; as her hearing aids are upgraded as technology changes; as she learns how to navigate a loud world in silence; how to make friends when you wear something that marks you visibly as “different”. Honestly, this is just such a great book. Perfect for children (easily accessible, funny) but also with enough adult humour to keep grown-ups involved (Spock = Emotionless Mumbler!). 

Reviewed by Li

Catalogue link:  El Deafo

eGraphic Novels in Libby

Hastings District Libraries eLibrary has some great graphic novels to explore.

To to find these once you are in Libby, try going to explore and do a search on graphic novels.
This will give a result of around 797 books.
There are graphic novels for the whole family. Geronimo Stilton, Percy Jackson, The Witcher,
Locke and Key, The Walking dead and Doctor Who. There are also Japanese language Books.
All the big names from Marvel are there The Avengers, Wolverine, X-Men, Spiderman, Black Panther Captain America, Daredevil, Deadpool, Fantastic Four, Doctor Strange and Guardians of the Galaxy.
There are also some DC titles, Batman, and others
There are the special event issue’s like House of M, Infinity Gauntlet, Infinity War, Annihilation, The Dark Knight returns, The Killing Joke, V for Vendetta and others.
Some of these are of older material and you may have never seen them before. The joy with this is you can easily read an entire series in order.
The collection doesn’t cover everything but it does give you good options to go back and view the highlights.
So log in and have a search for something you might like (and remember if you read it quickly there is an option to return it early so someone else can get it out).

Posted by Rob Middleton

The Backstagers by James Tynon IV, Ryan Sych and Walter Baiamonte

Having experience myself working ‘backstage’, ‘The Backstagers’ graphic novel series was right up my alley. It focuses on new student Jory who has just transferred to a new all-boys private high school. His mother encourages him to join a club to spend his time, so he heads over to the theatre, curious about the Drama Club. This idea immediately backfires when he finds the club full of narcissistic actors who couldn’t care less. 

The only people who treat him like an actual person take the form of the backstage crew. There's the lighting whizz Beckett, set builder Hunter, the level-headed Aziz and the adorable little helper Sasha. We are also later introduced to the Stage Managers, Timothy and Jamie, who are definitely a comedic pair. These are the ones behind all the magic of the theatre... with 'magic' being the keyword. An entire world sits behind the stage underneath the school: a maze of prop rooms, flowers made from stage lights, rivers of rainbow paint, and all sorts of monsters and crazy creatures!

Not only do these guys use these rooms to make brilliant shows, but they also keep people safe by stopping monsters getting out and letting lost actors wander inside. There is also the mystery of what happened to a previous backstage crew that never came back out in the 1980s.

The series is very well written by James Tunion IV (Detective Comics, the Woods) and the story is brought to life with the fantastic illustrations by Rian Sygh (Adventure Time, Munchkin). It flows well, and some of the panels are just pure artwork in themselves, well-drawn and coloured.

As a matter of fact, I'm rereading this series, having read the first two volumes once before and now rereading them with the release of the third. I found myself sitting in the staffroom laughing away at a lot of the scenes, earning a few puzzled looks but I didn't mind. A definite recommendation for any young adult having trouble fitting in or has an interest in the behind-the-scenes of theatre... or you're like me and have a love for fantasy worlds.

Reviewed by Rhianon Edwards

Catalogue link: The Backstagers