Laurent Richard

The book probes an incredibly timely and alarming theme — an issue that should concern all of us. Richard and Rigaud serve up a wealth of information about the danger technology poses to our privacy, freedoms and governments. As a journalist, I was intrigued by a number of the backstories. But even many diehard journalists and tech geeks might find some of the narrative to be excessively detailed and filled with too many drawn-out geopolitical subplots. To describe a large chunk of “Pegasus” as being “in the weeds” would be an understatement. This is particularly true in the first half of the book – the primary reason why I almost called it quits. That said, I learned a lot about a complex topic and was glad I soldiered on to the end.… (altro)

Pranks and Attacks! by Laurent Richard is the first in the Tao, the Little Samurai series. Essentially it's an omnibus of short panel comics that relate to Tao's time at the dojo.

What's missing here is some basic background. Why are Tao and the other kids learning to become samurai? Where do they live? How do they know each other?

I suppose it shouldn't matter since the humor is all situational but I never really felt I got to know anything about Tao. Not entirely true; he seems to be very bad at being a samurai. He's also lazy with his chores and his homework.

But if this is such an exclusive school, why do they keep him in? The "ho-ho Tao's goofed up again" style of humor loses its punch pretty quickly. But there's nothing else here to fill in the gaps.… (altro)

This is a new comic strip collection imported from France. I ended up looking at the second volume, but it doesn't seem to make any difference as it's basically a collection of individual stories, one per page. Typically, each story is labelled with a wise saying, for example, "The wise man reflects, the madman climbs" accompanies a story showing Tao complaining as he races up five flights of stairs in order not to be late for class....only to discover that his class was on the first floor. More stories include Tao's mishaps in class, battles against rival schools and villains, and his misadventures in love.

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… (altro)