The Truth Behind Old Comic Book Novelties and Other Great Books – Cool Tools

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The Truth Behind Old Comic Book Novelties and Other Great Books

Wink is Cool Tools’ website that reviews one remarkable paper book every weekday. We take photos of the covers and the ...

Wink is Cool Tools’ website that reviews one remarkable paper book every weekday. We take photos of the covers and the interior pages of the books to show you why we love them.

This week we reviewed:

R. Crumb: The Weirdo Years (1981 – 1993) — All of Robert Crumb’s work from his fantastic Weirdo Years

Mail-Order Mysteries — Revealing the truth behind the outlandish gizmos advertised in comic books during the 1960s-70s

Warhammer 40,000 (7^th Edition) — New rules, new game direction, and surprisingly lovely new rulebooks for the popular tabletop role-playing game

The Red Book — Carl Jung’s amazing self-illustrated dream journal

The Day-Glo Brothers — The story of Day-Glo paint, told with Day-Glo inks

Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities — Striking artifacts from one of the masters of fantasy and horror

Take a look at sample pages from these books and many others at Wink. And sign up for our Wink newsletter to get all the reviews and photos delivered once a week.

-- Mark Frauenfelder 07/12/14

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Hole in the Heart / Hattie & Hudson

Books That Belong On Paper first appeared on the web as Wink Books and was edited by Carla Sinclair. Sign up here to get the issues a week early in your inbox.

A MOVING AND REFRESHINGLY HONEST LOOK AT RAISING A CHILD WITH SPECIAL NEEDS

Hole in the Heart: Bringing Up Beth
by Octavia E. Butler (Author), Damian Duffy (Adapter), John Jennings (Illustrator)
Penn State University Press
2016, 288 pages, 6.8 x 0.8 x 9.5 inches, Paperback

This isn’t an easy read, but it’s an important and memorable one. Hole in the Heart, a memoir about giving birth to a child with Down syndrome, expresses anger, frustration, guilt, and many other parenting emotions. The book is moving and feels searingly honest, for instance when it explores Beaumont’s ambivalence about the outcome of her daughter Beth’s heart surgery. She struggles with the thought that it might not be such a terrible thing if Beth doesn’t make it.

The colors are starkly monochromatic, but Beaumont does expressive, figurative things with them that communicate emotional depths. This includes crying fat tears that threaten to drown her, or showing differences in moods using shadows.

Parents are under such pressure to be perfect, including saying all the right things. It’s brave of Beaumont to give voice to such complicated and difficult feelings in Hole in the Heart.

– Christine Ro

A LITTLE GIRL AND HER COLOSSAL FRIEND TEACH A MONSTER-SIZE LESSON ABOUT PREJUDGING OTHERS

Hattie & Hudson
by Chris Van Dusen
Candlewick Press
2017, 40 pages, 10.1 x 0.4 x 11.7 inches, Hardcover

Hattie & Hudson is a beautiful book in every way. When Hattie McFadden paddles out on the lake one summer morning for her daily dose of exploring, she is so happy, she begins to sing. “So come with me ‘cause there’s room for two, / We’ll be together, you and I. / Out on the lake in my little canoe, / Paddle, just a paddlin’ by.” Her calm, sweet song unexpectedly charms “a monster” at the bottom of the lake who can’t help but respond to the invitation. Though Hattie can see Hudson for who he really is, the townspeople are not so welcoming.

This story is a great in for getting kids talking about everything from persistence to profiling. Concepts of home and belonging, of loud, angry grownups acting out of fear, of power and voice all make it a book that works for many kids, on many levels.

Visually, Hattie & Hudson rivals Chris Van Dusen’s 2009 release, The Circus Ship, in its breathtakingly gorgeous Maine-inspired landscapes and achingly expressive Rockwell-meets-Pixar characters. But where The Circus Ship is silly and bouncy and quick, Hattie & Hudson uses the time (and space) needed to tell the story of a quietly righteous little girl and the power of friendship.

– Mk Smith Despres

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