106. Alison Dare Little Miss Adventures

Alison Dare: Little Miss Adventures by J. Torres. Art by J. Bone (Canada) - (USA)
Alison Dare, #1

Pages: 90 pages
Ages: 8+
Finished: June 12, 2010
First Published: 2002 (reprint May, 2010
Publisher: Tundra Books
Genre: children, graphic novel
Rating: 3.5/5

First sentence:

Once upon a time ... in the expansive sultanate of Shahrazad ... within the arid region of Es-Sindibad ... just outside the ancient city of Ala-ed-din, there was a bored little girl named Alison Dare.

Acquired: Received a review copy from LibraryThing's ER Program.

Reason for Reading: The summary intrigued me as did the fact that both the author and Illustrator are Canadians.

Alison Dare is a 12-year-old girl with the heart of an Indiana Jones. She wants "swashbuckling adventure, death defying danger, a little intrigue, romance, action" and she doesn't have to look far it. Her mother is a world renowned archaeologist and her father is the superhero the Blue Scarab. Both her mother and father are being stalked by an evil baron and various other bad guys and if she doesn't find adventure when she's with them she seems cable of discovering it easily enough on her own.

This was a real fun, action-packed comic which at times was either following and Indy Jones vibe or full of superhero action. Alison is always accompanied by her two best friends, one is the brains, the other the squeamish beauty. This particular volume is divided into three separate stories. The first involves Alison finding a Genie lamp while on an excavation with her mother during spring break and as most people find out, you must be careful what you wish for. In the second story Alison tells her two friends the story of how her parents met and how her father became the Blue Scarab, all in the middle of a newscast which reports on the Blue Scarab fighting near death with the Ice Woman. Finally the last story brings everyone together as Alison tries to get her parents back together by planning a picnic at the museum where her mother is working on a display of an Incan mummified baby. While that's not working out as planned the evil Baron von Baron descends upon them capturing them and stealing the mummy plus we get to meet another member of the Dare family, Uncle Johnny, a secret spy agent.

Each story was fun and exciting. I enjoyed Alison Dare. Her ego is a bit big for her boots but then aren't all adventurers like that, Indiana Jones, Laura Croft, etc. This will especially appeal to girls and is an entertaining, sometimes humorous read.