257. The Awakening by Donald Lemke

The Awakening by Donald Lemke. Illustrated by Claudia Medeliros (US) - (CANADA)
Good vs. Evil series

Pages: 48
Ages: 10+
Finished: Nov. 23, 2011
First Published: Aug. 1,2011
Publisher: Stone Arch Books
Genre: children, graphic novel, hi-low, manga, horror, easy reader
Rating: 5/5

First sentence:

Move it, punk!

Acquired: Received a review copy from Capstone Press.

Reason for Reading:  Ds read this to me as his reader.

Don't let the low reading level on this fool you into thinking it is for young children.  This book, and I'm assuming series, is a high-interest/low reading level for older kids.  I'd recommend this for the reluctant Gr. 5 reader and older.  Here we have a typical manga style graphic novel written in a unique format.  The pages are divided in half.  One half of the page is coloured in blue shades and tells the tale from the Good character's point of view, while the other half of the page is coloured in red shades and tells the same story from the Evil character's point of view.  There are three ways to read the book and my son insisted on reading through the book all three different ways.  First cover up the bottom half of the pages and just read the Good version of the story.  Then cover up the top half of the story and just read the Evil version of the story.  Finally open the book and read Good & Evil together at the same time.  Each read through opens up a little more knowledge of what was going on where when what happened somewhere else.  It is a really cool way to read a graphic novel and my son thought this was totally awesome.  I admit to finding it a creepy, little, cool, horror story, too, with a unique format.  Stone Arch books are always "parent-friendly" but this one is a bit more intense, does show droplets of dark spots of blood, and may be frightening to those not used to watching Japanese or "Goth" cartoons. We have another of these to read and are looking forward to it.  Ds has decided this one is a keeper for his shelf, a highly coveted honour, let me tell you.