Sanford Greene

This is the 3rd & final (?) volume in the Kulipari trilogy. I have to be honest: this is a flawed series, mostly but its truly awful puns & wordplay. But is is written for a younger audience that might be amused by that rather than annoyed. This final volume does have a genuinely thrilling & suspenseful ending. On the whole, the series comes off better visually than literarily, so it makes sense Netflix is releasing an animated version ("Kulipari: An Army of Frogs) in September.

When you think of NFL players you don’t necessarily see them as much more than big, hulking athletes. But Trevor Pryce is looking to change that. He – like many others – are breaking out of their usual day-to-day jobs and entering the juvenile fiction market. His debut novel An Army of Frogs is the first in the brand new Kulipari series that launches on May 7th. Joining him are author Joel Naftali and illustrator Sanford Greene – the later of whom you may know from various DC and show more Dark Horse titles. These three creative minds come together to create a story and a world that really draws you in. Targeted toward middle grade boys, it mixes comic book quality pictures with a cute, fun, action-filled story that will keep young readers interested all the way until the very last page.

There are a lot of things I can say about this book but first I should say that it’s really an absolutely gorgeous title. The pages are bright and colorful and full of fantastic illustrations. The pictures supplement the story and don’t distract from it at all. Honestly, I kept waiting for the next one. It always helps, I think, when you’re using animal characters to have some pictures to help readers visualize things. You want to see Darel and the other characters and sometimes it can be hard to visualize what an anthropomorphic frog is doing or what it would look like.

And Darel is a great main character.

He’s a very curious and slightly mischievous little wood frog in a world where frogs and turtles are at war with scorpions and spiders. Darel dreams of being a warrior like his father – a poisonous Kulipari who died protecting the turtle king and hiding away the frog villages from the armies that would destroy them by creating the Veil. Unfortunately, he takes after his mother and is just a wood frog with no special powers or abilities. His will be a life of good, honest work in the village. Still he dreams of adventure and spends his days and nights play battling with his best friend Gee and telling his younger siblings (three tadpoles who take after their poisonous father) all kinds of epic stories about their brave father. They should be safe here beyond the Veil.

What’s the Veil? The Veil is a supernatural force that keeps the villages hidden away. But it’s not impenetrable. They may not be able to see into the Veil but they can pass through it and while off exploring the woods with Gee, Darel comes across an invading army that could easily wipe out all of the frogs. When Gee is captured all of those games of pretend suddenly become a reality and he must gather his courage to save his friend, his family, and his community.

It will take everything Darel can muster but he rises to the challenge and sets out to prove that he can be more than just a wood frog.

Now, I thought this was a very cute book.

And I acknowledge that I am reading this as a twenty-something year old law student so I’m hesitant to be too critical. The dialogue was simple and a bit bland at times, sure. It was definitely written in general at a lower reading level but, you know, it’s a book written for middle school boys so that’s understandable. I loved Darel and Gee even if they were a bit stereotypical as characters. I would have liked to have seen a bit more of Darel’s relationship with the little girl frog he’s clearly got this thing going with but I figure middle school boys aren’t too interested in that.

I also really enjoyed the world that is built around these talking animals and what not. I love the alliances that are formed by certain species and I love the communities they build. It all takes place in Australia and though each animal species has it’s own little communities they see one another and interact with one another now and again in various ways. Some of the things that the authors come up with are just perfect little additions. At first the village where the frogs all live seems pretty normal – like any human village in any sort of fantasy story with skilled artisans and shops and apprenticeships and what not. But then you’ll get all these little things that pop up. Like the tadpole ponds where all the little tadpoles live until they grow legs. They adjust for the very frog-like nature of their characters while also adapting things to fit the setting and the characters.

I think Trevor Pryce and Joe Naftali did a really great job with this one. If you’re looking for something to recommend to your younger kids, this is a great book. In particular, this would be great for fans of Inkheart, Fablehaven, the Warriors, Redwall, the Familiars, and other, similar middle grade series. show less

I was going to give this book a 2-star rating after finishing the main feature, because despite the interesting start and showing us horror through an African American prism, the story quickly became a lot of slam-bang action scenes with one-dimensional characters fighting monsters. It felt like I was skipping all the other episodes in the season and just watching the cliffhanger finale of Supernatural. Who are these people and why are they all fighting?

But the book was saved by the many show more scholarly articles in the end matter. A lot of thought provoking notions were raised there that I hope the creators of the comics will start to integrate more fully into their narrative. show less

This book was simply amazing. It is an extremely alternative history of the Harlem Renascence. In this world, people with a corrupted soul become these monsters that must be killed or must be cured. And being it’s the 1920’s and his is Harlem and most of the monsters were people who believed in lynching and segregation. But there is one family that is the best at making their bitter root brew that can save someone from this life. They work with the police and everything, because they show more want a better world. On its own, the story is amazing, and the artwork is so detailed. But add historical reference I knew nothing about, and I was googling “red summer”, 1919 deaths etc. This book, a historical fantasy about monster killing, read this reader down a research hole to learn about things not taught in schools. It makes the reader curious, and eager to learn more and only the best books can do that.

If you liked Ring Shout - then you would probably like this book. show less