Jimmy Gownley

I love the fact that every time I read a new "Amelia" adventure I'm so taken in by the story and the characters, that I don't notice any morals or truths that are included in the message of the tales. By this point, the world is so "real" that I easily immerse myself into what's going on, living vicariously through their triumphs, trials and tribulations, and especially zany lives. And when the stories are as powerful as this one, it isn't until you close the back cover that you realize what show more an incredibly simple-yet-true "Life Message" was also revealed. Jimmy Gownley is a wonderful storyteller who writes with his heart, which is why it's so easy for me to have a soft spot for Amelia :) show less

Gownley is trying for a madcap and quirky Ferris Bueller tone in this story about kids trying to change the world one good deed at a time, but the end result is a cluttered and overlong jumble that left me caring little about any of the characters or their actions. Meh.

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.