This post is the second in a series of three.

Yesterday I reviewed this year’s Eisner nominees for Teens. Today I review the nominees for Early Readers (see my post of May 22 for an overview of all young readers’ categories). As usual, I’ve tried to describe each book fairly, though at the bottom I do signal my favorites. FYI, clicking on a book's title will take you to a publisher's page about that book.

​​​Bog Myrtle, by Sid Sharp (Annick Press)​
Picture-book and graphic-novel aesthetics mingle in this morbidly clever Gorey-esque fable about two sisters who live in “a hideous, drafty old house,” the spiders they live with, the looming forest outside, and a monstrous “old woman” who guards it. Ultimately, this becomes an impish satire of unchecked capitalism (versus sustainability). It’s in the same wheelhouse as William Steig’s original Shrek! or Eleanor Davis’ Stinky, sly, sharp books that cheerfully embrace the unlovely and weird. It feels too long (150 pages), too arch, and too verbose to be for “early readers,” but it’s a lovely, formally ingenious book, regardless of category.

​Club Microbe, by Elise Gravel, translated by Montana Kane (Drawn & Quarterly)
This spirited picture-book primer on microorganisms (bacteria, viruses, etc.) has a pleasingly random quality, as if inspired by Gravel’s enthusiasm rather than any pedagogical grand plan. Gravel’s odd examples and transitions, and the way she simultaneously undercuts and indulges in anthropomorphism (giving microbes eyes, for example), make for a book as daffy as it is didactic. The dangers posed by germs are duly noted, yet so is the whole biosphere’s dependence on microbes. The book presupposes an adult chaperone, as it delights in scientific names and glosses concepts such as antibodies and vaccination. Gravel’s wacky cartooning is a strong plus.

Hilda and Twig Hide from the Rain, by Luke Pearson (Flying Eye)
A new Hilda book? Sign me up! This one, though, is different: while still in BD album format, the story is briefer (mostly the events of a single afternoon), the pages less dense, the cartooning looser and even freer. Also, this is a prequel unencumbered by continuity, and really belongs to Hilda’s deerfox friend, Twig. Pearson seems to have rediscovered his characters with this short, sweet episode, which is witty, smart, rambunctious, but also warm and soulful. Call it a “new phase” Hilda book, perhaps an entryway for younger readers. I hope there will be more, because this is terrific.

Night Stories: Folktales from Latin America, by Liniers (TOON Books/Astra Books)
​Argentine comics genius Liniers, always delightful, does another TOON book, this one similar in format to Jaime Hernandez’s The Dragon Slayer (likewise a folktale sampler). Typical of TOON Graphics, it frames charming comics with didactic front and back matter. This one’s rather textbook-like introduction did not prepare me for the funny, spooky comics inside: three brief tales rooted in Argentinean, Brazilian, and Mexican folklore, framed as bedtime stories that two kids tell each other. Liniers’ ink and watercolor cartooning feels scruffy and alive, and he has a knack for droll, offhand details. I wish the stories and book were longer.

Poetry Comics, by Grant Snider (Chronicle Books)
I came to this skeptically, jaded by previous brushes with “poetry comics,” but Snider delivers what he promises: poems that are comics, comics that are poems. Over four cycles (Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter) and about seventy poems, he builds satisfying pages and sequences, varied in layout, graphic rhythm, prosody, metaphor, and mood. The poems (one or two pages each) balance the playful and pensive. Along the way, the child reader implicitly becomes a child poet. The overarching themes are familiar (love of nature, growing up, self-doubt, searching for words) but the delivery is artful. Snider’s simple, sketchy drawings work perfectly.

Final notes: a good category. I started with Bog Myrtle, which I dug, but then Poetry Comics impressed me greatly, appealing to my love of form and of books that encourage art-making among young readers. Ironically, I didn't come to Hilda and Twig, sentimental favorites of mine, until last, and although I was on guard against my own fannish bias there, I think I've finally come to the conclusion that, yes, Hilda and Twig is the one I'll vote for. It's just so good!

I'll be back tomorrow with a final post, about the nominees in the Kids category.

Paul Bunyan: The Invention of an American Legend is another TOON Graphic that juxtaposes a compelling comic with carefully curated (front and back) editorial matter. In this case, the introduction and back matter are not just instructive supplements but pointed rejoinders to the comic, and essential to the book's overall effect. Noah Van Sciver's comic takes up 36 of the book's 52 pages, but the remaining pages are emphatically not filler. What we have here is a package that both burnishes and yet undermines the "legend" of the faux-folkloric lumberjack, Paul Bunyan, with Van Sciver casting a skeptical eye on how the legend was promulgated while the other features remind us of what the legend hides. It's a great and startling project. I wish it had been among the Kids nominees for this year's Eisners, and was glad to see it among the finalists for this year's Excellence in Graphic Literature Awards (which is what reminded me to write about it here).

Noah Van Sciver has become one of my favorite cartoonists. He is a terrific humorist and memoirist (his hilarious autobio comic, Maple Terrace, was one of my favorites from last year). What's more, he is one of the US's best and most prolific creators of historical and biographical comics (his brave book Joseph Smith and the Mormons is just the iceberg's tip). Paul Bunyan feels like it's right in his wheelhouse. The story, a fiction inspired by fact, takes place in Minnesota in 1914 on a westbound train, as lumber industry ad man William Laughead regales his fellow passengers with yarns about Paul Bunyan, "the best jack there ever was" and the epitome of the industry's clear-cutting zeal. Laughead's crazy, mythmaking anecdotes have the zestful absurdity of tall tales, and Van Sciver knows how appealing such tales can be. A shameless fabulist, Laughead imagines Bunyan as an unstoppable giant-sized version of himself. He meets challenges posed by skeptical listeners with a game face and ever-escalating bunkum. Van Sciver portrays him as folksy, funny, a bit desperate, and basically a shill. More critical perspectives are provided by other characters, especially a disillusioned lumber industry vet. The art is lively and joyous, but also insinuating, and the textures (drawn in ink but then colored digitally) are trademark Van Sciver. This is beautifully organic and readable cartooning. 

You could say that this is Van Sciver's project (the indicia assigns the copyright to him and TOON), but the elements provided by other creators are vital. Those elements, from Native writers and artists, decry the "seizure of homeland" and environmental devastation spurred by America's rapacious lumber industry, and champion forms of history and knowledge obscured by the aggressive expansionism of the Bunyan myth. Lee Francis IV (Pueblo of Laguna), well-known as an advocate for Native comics, provides a wisely ambivalent introduction. Deondre Smiles (Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe), critical geographer and academic, supplies an informative and well-illustrated essayistic postscript about the links among colonization, land theft, and deforestation. Marlena Myles (Spirit Lake Dakota), a multidisciplinary artist, provides essays, a bilingual, Dakota and English map, and strikingly stylized illustrations and endpapers. There is a meeting of talents and perspectives here that suggests careful project management (by editor Tucker Stone and editorial director and book designer Françoise Mouly). The whole definitely exceeds the sum of its parts. 

Paul Bunyan is the kind of project I've come to expect from TOON: distinctly individual, yet collaborative; personal, yet proactively curated by an expert editorial team. More than further proof of Van Sciver's historical imagination and cartooning chops, it's a multifaceted group effort, the kind that is needed when you're demythologizing and debunking an entrenched bit of Americana. It's a short read, but excellent, and I find myself paging through again and again with admiration.