Duprau, Jean. The City of Ember Graphic Novel
Adapted by Dallad Middaugh, Art by Niklas Asker
25 September 2012, Random House
Copy from YA Books Central and reviewed there
The City of Ember, first published in 2003, has been a popular dystopian book in my library long before The Hunger Games phenomenon hit. I've never seen the 2008 movie, but now I may have to. This was a great graphic version of an old favorite, and was very well done. The sepia toned drawings give a feeling of the underground oppression, but are clear enough that I had no trouble telling characters apart (often a problem with graphic retellings-- everyone looks like Speed Racer to me). The text is easy to read, although necessarily small, and conveys the gist of the book when combined with the pictures.
Graphic novels can get to be a bit annoying in a school library; I've riffed often about how students will come in three times a day to check out three each time, and I wonder if they do anything but look at the pictures. (With the possible exception of one enterprising students who discovered he could get all of his AR points by reading the graphic novel version of the Cirque du Freak books and taking the test on the novel versions!) Still, my hope is always that students will pick up the graphic version and be intrigued enough to read the original, because the graphic version must always leave out some of the really good parts.
This is, of course, my whole reason behind buying Hope Larson's version of A Wrinkle in Time! (2 October 2012, Farrar, Straus and Giroux.) I hope it is as well bound as The City of Ember.
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