Jimmy Gownley

Children's graphic novel about a little kid who plays superhero with her friends, and is plotting all the Christmas loot she's going to get. Some people don't get as much loot! Unfair! Does Santa really exist? The kids go on an adventure to disprove Santa's existence, but aren't sure themselves. Amelia discovers that one of her friends doesn't have a lot of money and doesn't get toys, and then plays Santa with her friend so that he can have a cool toy. ... At the end of the book is the show more origin story which shows Amelia moving to town, after her parents divorce, and trying to become friends with the gang. [return][return]Nice enough kid-centered story about kindness, and the "Christmas spirit" of giving. But, very definitely white and Christmas-oriented. No non-Christmas celebrants are acknowledged (Jews? Muslims? nah) and everyone, so far as I could tell, is pretty which white. Kids who are flirting with the idea of whether Santa is "real" or not won't learn anything particularly new, but observant readers will figure something out from the aunt's response, and from the general questions of class and poverty. show less

I've been following Jimmy Gownley's comic work from the melancholy Shades of Gray series in the '90s through the quirky Amelia Rules! books of '00s because he makes reliably entertaining comics. And that shows in this nice volume of gentle humor and action spinning out of the Tangled movie.

I do have to be a grumpy old man, though, and point out that back when I was a kid, Gold Key/Western Publishing would have formatted this same sort of Disney licensed story into an 8-panel grid and show more published it as a 25 cent comic book. I look at the $8.99 price tag on this, note that it took me ten minutes to read, and realize that I probably would have skipped it if I couldn't have checked it out of the library. (Note: This bit of crabbiness played no role in my rating for the book.) show less

Even Jimmy Gownley cannot extend my interest in a Disney movie I watched with my daughter eight years ago.

I like that he tackles the timely theme of alternative facts and the need for fact checking, but I'm being petty and deducting a point for him and editors failing to do their own fact checking and misusing "slander" when referring to the libel that occurred in a book everyone is reading in the story.

There simply aren't enough good words in the English language to describe this book. It's been compared to Peanuts more times than I can count, and if you're just looking at the cuteness of it, I can understand that--it does have a moderately Peanutsy look. But where this story really shines is in the emotional content. Gownley's biggest strength is his ability to portray situations with all the gravity they have to a 10-year-old. A situation that doesn't merit much thinking about to an show more adult, but is a big deal to a kid--Gownley writes it as a Big Deal. Because to Amelia and her friends, it IS a big deal.

Superheroes, the third Amelia Rules collection, is probably the most emotional by far. Watching her moving away from her friends, coping with a new friend moving away, a bike accident on a scary road, and the projections of what happens to Amelia as she grows up are by turns heartbreaking and hopeful. Gownley is really in top form in this collection. show less