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Loading... Ninjas and Knock Outs! (Tao, the Little Samurai)by Laurent Richard
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"Tao is a student at venerable master Kerozen's martial arts school. With his friends Rakai and Lee-Tou and his not-girlfriend Katimini, he tries to follow the teachings of the masters at the school--or, more often, finds a way around the masters' advice. Tao does not lack for ambition, but he has a tendency to get himself into trouble"-- No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)741.5The arts Graphic arts and decorative arts Drawing & drawings Cartoons, Caricatures, ComicsLC ClassificationRatingAverage: No ratings.Is this you?Become a LibraryThing Author. |
The art is colorful with lots of excited speech bubbles, movement, and gags. The pervading color scheme is mostly yellows and browns, with some blue-themed stories that happen around the water. As you can see on the cover, the class of samurai students is quite diverse. It's obviously a fantasy Japan as Tao has a shaved head and wrapped tail of hair, his best friend is blonde, his love interest appears to be Indian with darker skin and a caste mark, and there also are characters who appear to be stereotypical Chinese.
I'm a bit conflicted about this title. On the one hand, it's quite funny, kids love the comic strip books, and with Lego Ninjago there's a lot of interest in fantasy-ninjas. On the other hand, I wonder how stereotyped/potentially offensive it is (not a culture I know a great deal about, so I can't really tell) and it's from Lerner so the choice is either paperbacks or library bound at over $20 apiece.
Verdict: If you are looking for more light comic reading, it might be worth trying these out in paperback, which I think is what I might do. Otherwise, I'd probably pass on these.
ISBN: 9781467732727; Published 2014 by Lerner; Borrowed from another library in my consortium