by Rob Reger and Jessica Gruner
Illustrated by Rob Reger and Buzz Parker
I’m not even sure how to go about describing this one. I couldn’t even figure out how to tag it so I just tagged it “Emily the Strange” because there really is no way to categorize her.
Let me begin with some quotes:
13 elements you will find in the first Emily the Strange novel:
- Mystery
- A beautiful golem
- Souped-up slingshots
- Four black cats
- Amnesia
- Calamity Poker
- Angry ponies
- A shady truant officer
- Top-13 lists
- A sandstorm generator
- Dopplegangers
- A secret mission
- Earwigs
(front flap)
Emily finds herself in a mysterious town called Blackrock, which has no rocks of any sort around it, with no memories of who she is, where she comes from, or why she’s in Blackrock. It becomes very clear early on that Emily is not actually from Blackrock so she sets out to solve the mystery of herself. Hilarious antics ensue.
From the beginning:
I think I better take notes, cuz something super strange is happening to me, and I don’t know
- my name
- anyone else’s name
- where I am
- how I got here
- where I live
- how old I am (am I a kid or just short?)
- anything I’ve done since I was born
- whether I’m a cat person or dog person
- whether I actually believe people are cat people or dog people
- what might have been written on the eleven pages that were torn out of this book
- why this happened to me
- how long it’s going to last, or
- what I should do next
Here’s what I DO know:
- I’m human.
- I’m a girl.
- I’m wearing a black dress.
- I’m wearing black stockings.
- I have long black hair.
- I seem to like the color black.
- I recently stepped in gum.
- My skin is pale, so the bruises on my left arm show up really well.
- I have a notebook, a pencil, and a slingshot, and that’s it.
- I’m left-handed.
- I speak English.
- The Earth is round and travels around the sun.
- I seem to like the number 13.
(pgs 13-14, really 1-2)
If any of this sounds at all funny or interesting, you owe it to yourself to check out Emily the Strange or at least go to Amazon and “Look Inside”.
I found Emily hilarious. The format is more of an illustrated novel, lots of pictures throughout, which would definitely appeal to reluctant readers. The middle gets a bit slow and some things maybe could have been cut, but Emily just cracked me up. She worked for my sense of humor. I’ve ordered a few of her graphic novels to tide me over until her next novel, Emily the Strange: Stranger and Stranger, comes out, which is I’m not sure when.