10 hours ago
Stack Overflow: Reading Grab-Bag
School is finally out for us and we've moved into our summer schedule, though you wouldn't know it from the weather—we had a grey, rainy summer solstice this weekend. Today's stack doesn't have a specific theme; it's primarily comic books, but I've also got a couple of joke books in there for good measure—just a few books that I've read recently!
The Impawsibly Good Book of Cat Jokes edited by Thomas Nowak, illustrated by Nat Ellis
Pretty Good Science Jokes edited by Steve Mockus, illustrated by Johnny Sampson
These two joke books are small hardcovers, compact enough to carry around for on-the-go joke sharing, and have a lot of little illustrations scattered throughout the books. Although the books are the same size, the science book is a bit denser, with 230 jokes compared to the 165 cat jokes. The vast majority of jokes are riddles, though there are also some knock-knock jokes and one-liners. Both books will be published in August.
We've worked our way through both books, and everyone in the family agrees that they liked the science jokes better than the cat jokes. I felt like there were just some limitations on the number of cat-related puns, which meant you got a lot of jokes that felt similar or repetitive (and sometimes the punchline just didn't quite land). Science, on the other hand, is a pretty broad category, which allowed for subcategories like physics, chemistry, math, and so on, each with their own jargon and terminology to build from. It could still be a little hit or miss at times, but as we enjoy groaners and dad jokes here, we had some fun with them. If you've got kids who like joke books, I'd recommend checking out the science jokes, but maybe pass on the cats.
The Books of Clash Volume 5 by Gene Luen Yang, Kendall Goode, Alison Acton
The legend continues in this graphic novel series based on the popular mobile app. It's fun to see how each book takes a particular character or two from the game and turns them from a generic class to a specific individual. This volume takes us to the Goblin village, where we meet Crag and Crag Junior. Old Crag doesn't really hang out much with the other Goblins because they think he's a bit looney: he has stories of a giant lava monster living deep under the village, and is building a giant rocket as an escape plan. Meanwhile, Crag Junior meets Joe, a miner who happens to speak a little bit of Goblinish. Although the humans and Goblins don't typically cooperate with each other, Crag Junior recruits Joe to dig down to find out whether these stories of a giant monster are true after all.
In the previous books, whenever the Goblins are talking, the book uses a weird hieroglyphic font to disguise their words (though with some effort you can decipher it). This time, since the book takes place mostly in Goblinish, it's the humans who speak in gibberish, and there's even a scene from an earlier book that we see replayed from the Goblin's point of view. Crag Junior is caught between worlds—he loves his dad but he has a hard time simply rejecting all the other Goblins as wrong. And when Joe helps him dig down below the village, they make a discovery that brings yet another challenge for Crag Junior. My middle schooler has really been enjoying this series and has re-read all the books multiple times, and I like the way that the books have really created some narrative depth and individuality for these characters.
Big Jim and the White Boy written by David F. Walker, illustrated by Marcus Kwame Anderson
In the story of Huck Finn, Huck runs away with Jim, an enslaved Black man, and they have a series of adventures. Walker and Anderson take the skeleton of Mark Twain's tale and give it a new life in this graphic novel, told this time from Jim's point of view. I heard a radio interview with Walker in which he said one of the big questions he had even when reading Huckleberry Finn as a kid was: why did they flee to the south? Wouldn't it have made more sense to go north instead? Intrigued, I picked up a copy at the bookstore.
This version of the story has Jim searching for his wife and children, sold off by Huck's dad. Huck pretends to be Jim's master whenever they encounter people, but behind the scenes Jim really takes the initiative. The comic book jumps forward and back in time, too: we see Huck and Jim as much older men in the 1930s, telling their story to a bunch of kids (and arguing with each other about what actually happened). We also see a woman in 2022 who has traced her genealogy to Jim, whom she believes to be the same man who became a legend for freeing many enslaved people using the network of the Underground Railroad. Although the comic does away with a lot of the escapades from Twain's original novel, it really builds on the relationship between Jim and Huck, and gives Jim a voice to tell his story. I really enjoyed this spin on the story, and I think it's worth a read!
Should We Buy a Gun? written by Dave Cowen, illustrated by Gabriel Wexler
It can be hard to have a conversation about guns in America that isn't immediately polarized, a stalemate between the Constitutional right to bear arms and the undeniable results of gun-related violence. This book is an attempt by Cowen and Wexler (themselves on opposite sides of the political spectrum) to try to dig into the question in a way that allows everyone to feel heard.
The framing story is about Maggie and Adam, a young couple in Austin who are considering starting a family. After a mugging at gunpoint, they find themselves disagreeing about the best course of action. Maggie is scared that the muggers may track them down and would feel safer if they had a gun for protection, which shocks Adam, who feels that guns lead to escalation and are unnecessarily risky. They argue with each other, and also have conversations with various friends and coworkers. They even go to a shooting range and learn to shoot guns.
Over the course of the book, a lot of the arguments both for and against gun ownership are presented by various characters, but Maggie and Adam also often have flights of imagination, picturing exaggerated situations involving guns and attackers. When Adam shifts his position and decides maybe guns are a good idea, Maggie finds herself turned off by his new ultra-macho behavior. It takes a while before the two are able to figure out where they stand, and whether their differences are irreconcilable.
While I think it's a laudable to try to open up the conversation about guns in a way that is a little less combative, I don't know that the book changed my mind much, or introduced perspectives for either side that were new to me. There were parts of the book that felt a little caricatured or oversimplified, and it also felt like things wrapped up in a tidy way that didn't feel entirely realistic. It could be a starting point for a conversation if people are willing to read it first, though. My Current Reads
I've got a stack of movie-related books that is probably more and more overdue that I've started to read lately, and I've also been picking back up on a few book series. I just finished the latest City Spies novel by James Ponti, and I've started the sixth book in Matt Dinniman's Dungeon Crawler Carl series, which is super hefty! In the queue I've got The Martian Contingency by Mary Robinette Kowal (in the Lady Astronaut series), and I'm excited for Among Ghosts by Rachel Hartman, set in the same world as her Serafina novels.
Disclosure: I received review copies of these titles except for Big Jim and the White Boy . Affiliate links to help support my writing and independent booksellers! Liked it? Take a second to support GeekDad and GeekMom on Patreon!
