Friday, May 21, 2010

"Rose"

A friend loaned me the graphic novel Rose by Jeff Smith and Charles Vess. I made the mistake of picking it up at bedtime, and I didn't put it down until I'd finished it. It is a great read, and (fortunately for me) also a quick read. I finished it in about an hour.

It might be said that this book is about dreams. It starts out with a story about how in the beginning all was a dream, and that the first dragon, Mim, kept everything in balance. Then one day a bad spirit, a nightmare really, known as the Lord of the Locusts, attempted to take control away from Mim. The Lord of the Locusts was defeated and imprisoned, at least for a time.

But to young Princess Rose, this is all ancient history, and she is not particularly concerned about it. She is more concerned about being a good student. Or she would be, if she could focus on her lessons. (I think she has ADHD big time, and she vaguely reminds me of myself.) But when she frees a tiny dragon from a creek in a dream, she has new things to worry about: the tiny dragon turns out to not be so tiny in physical reality, and he might be in league with the Lord of the Locusts. If the Lord of the Locusts manages to win his freedom, there will be trouble for all.

I say again, this is a great book. In addition to the story being wonderful, the illustrations are beautiful. In fact, I keep picking the book back up to look at them some more!

The only downside is that the story is somewhat predictable, but truthfully I didn't really care about that as I read. And in spite of its predictibility, it did hold one surprise for me at the end.

I enjoyed this book, and if you're looking for some easy fun reading I recommend it.

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