229. Tower of Treasure by Scott Chantler

Tower of Treasure by Scott Chantler (Canada) - (USA)
Three Thieves, Book One

Pages: 112
Ages: 8+
Finished: Oct. 28, 2010
First Published: Aug. 1, 2010
Publisher: Kids Can Press
Genre: graphic novel, children, fantasy
Rating: 3.5/5

First sentence:

Look alive up there, you louts!

Acquired: Borrowed a copy from the Calgary library while on vacation.

Reason for Reading: This is a Cybils '10 nominee and required reading for me as a graphic novels panelist.

This is a cute adventure story filled with excitement and derring-do. Dessa Redd is an acrobat in a traveling circus but she has a past she vividly remembers. As a little child her mother and father disappeared while she and her brother hid under the house, when all of a sudden one of the king's guards broke through the floors and scooped up her little brother exclaiming he'd found him. Orphaned and on her lone, she has traveled with the circus hoping to find the man who was there that night ordering the search for her brother. She sees him when they enter the royal city and her friends, a goblin sort of creature and a one-headed titan, plan on robbing the Queen's Treasure Tower. Not a thief at heart, herself, her talents are helpful to the others though and together they plan the robbery and confronting the man who took her brother. They end up fighting against hidden booby traps, chased by king's guards, ordered to be hanged, and barely escaping each time.

Lots of fun! Wonderful artwork that captures the readers attention right away. The art shows scenes of humour without words and and also adds the atmosphere with dark colours for the evil characters. The evil characters are decidedly so but there is one character, the Queen's Captain of the Guards who seems as though he may prove to be more than just another bad guy as we have seen that he is an honourable man though he serves an evil queen. The book ends as they escape there present danger and journey forth together now that the circus has left them behind, on another quest to look for the man whom they now know his name, Greyfalcon, to continue looking for Dessa's missing brother. While the story doesn't have an awful lot of depth to it, I think it opens well for a first volume and hopefully will fill in more backstory with the next volume. However, this should satisfy young fantasy fan's thirst for adventure and have them anxious to read the next volume. I know I am.