Are You Scared, Darth Vader? by Adam Rex

Are You Scared, Darth Vader?
by Adam Rex [jP Rex] 

This is a charming and amusing juvenile picture book, with some gorgeous artwork. Star Wars’ ultimate villain, the armored and wheezing Darth Vader is roaming a dark, dank, swampy planet — think Yoda’s swamp world of Dagobah from The Empire Strikes Back — and a taunting child-like voice keeps pestering him about whether anything could “scare” him, to which Vader replies in typically Vader-like dark meaningful statements (that are easy to imagine James Earl Jones intoning).
For each example of something that could potentially “scare” Darth Vader, a small figure appears around him — such as a werewolf, a vampire, a witch, etc. — essentially children in Halloween costumes. Despite the obvious “children’s picture book” nature of this, there are moments of both poignancy and surprise, particularly with an unexpected ending.

I figured I would merely be slightly amused by this book. But, as it turns out, I really enjoyed the artwork and storytelling, and may even consider purchasing this one for my own Star Wars book collection!

[If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try The Vader-related cartoon volumes by Jeffrey Brown, including Darth Vader and Son and Vader’s Little Princess.]

[ publisher’s official Are You Scared, Darth Vader? web page ] | [ official Adam Rex web site ]

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library

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New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewers recommendations!

The Creeps: A Deep Dark Fears Collection by Fran Krause

The Creeps: A Deep Dark Fears Collection
by Fran Krause [741.5 Kra] 

This one caught my eye on the New Books display at the downtown library, and I decided to give it a chance. Artist Fran Krause collected a wide variety of different people’s personal “fears”, then illustrated them in comics/graphic-novel format. Each “fear” gets either a single-panel cartoon or a short comic strip to graphically represent how that fear would play out. Some of the “fears” are merely thought=provoking, or simply ironic. Others, however, earn the book its title, and are extremely creepy or even grotesque, made even more so by the ordinariness and simplicity of the cartoon art style. In many ways, I would recommend this volume to anyone who is a fan of Gahan Wilson’s surreal cartoons, or Charles Addams’ single-panel newspaper and magazine cartoons (the artist best known as the creator of the macabre Addams Family). Perhaps, the closest artist in style and tone is Edward Gorey and his Gashlycrumb Tinies, which imagines 26 different horrible deaths, one per letter of the alphabet.

[If you enjoy this, you may also wish to try The World of Edward Gorey, by Edward Gorey, or I Paint What I See, by Gahan Wilson.]

[ publisher’s official The Creeps web page ] | [ official Fran Krause Tumblr feed ]

Recommended by Scott C.
Bennett Martin Public Library

Have you read this one? What did you think? Did you find this review helpful?

New reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide website. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog individually over the course of the entire month. Click the tag for the reviewer's name to see more of this reviewers recommendations!

Staff Recommendations - The Gift of Fear

The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect us From Violence

by Gavin DeBecker [362.88 Deb]

Gavin de Becker is a busy guy! A leading expert on predicting violent behavior, he is also a Senior Fellow at the UCLA School of Public Affairs and one of the world's leading threat-assessment consultants. De Becker believes we can all learn to recognize the signals of the "universal code of violence," and use them as tools to help us survive. de Becker says victims of violent behavior usually feel a sense of fear before any threat or violence takes place. The book teaches how to identify the warning signals of a potential attacker and recommends strategies for dealing with the problem before it becomes life threatening. The case studies are gripping and suspenseful, and include tactics for dealing with similar situations. People don't just "snap" and become violent, says de Becker, whose clients include federal government agencies, celebrities, police departments, and shelters for battered women. "There is a process as observable, and often as predictable, as water coming to a boil." Learning to predict violence is the cornerstone to preventing it. De Becker is a master of the psychology of violence, and his advice may save your life. -- recommended by Lisa V. - Bennett Martin Public Library

[ Wikipedia page for The Gift of Fear ] [ official Gavin DeBecker and Associates web site ]

Have you read this one? What did you think?

Ten new reviews appear every month on the Staff Recommendations page of the BookGuide web site. You can visit that page to see them all, or watch them appear here in the BookGuide blog over the course of the entire month.