How to write a graphic novel

Draw Out the Story: Ten Secrets to Creating Your Own Comics
by Brian McLachlan


Comics are a unique form of storytelling. What makes them unique and how you can tell a story in a comic book format is the basis of McLachlan's comprehensive book. He introduces readers to the different styles, genres, and formats of comics and demonstrates how each presentation is used to tell a particular story. He then discusses how to add detail, metaphor, allusion, sound effects, and more. Each chapter ends with creative do-it-yourself exercises for readers to practice and hone their visual vocabulary. 

An excellent instruction book for beginner and advanced cartoonists. 

Highly recommended.

Easy cartooning

Adventures in Cartooning: How to Turn Your Doodles Into Comics
by James Sturm, Andrew Arnold, and Alexis Frederick-Frost


In Adventures in Cartooning, cartooning lessons are woven into a funny, action-filled comic book starring an impatient knight, a hungry horse, and an enthusiastic magic cartooning elf. The knight is looking for a dragon to slay. The elf is there to help him find one, imparting information about doodles, panels, word balloons, and thought balloons along the way. The panels showing the knight running across a variety of scenes (of forests, deserts, oceans, etc.) are particularly effective.

Cartooning basics

Cartooning for Kids
by Marge Lightfoot


Kids who follow comic strips may be inspired to create their own cartoons. This book will help them get started. It shows them where to find ideas and how to draw basic figures of people and animals. It has a few step-by-step instructions on shape and movement, and how to add backgrounds, captions, and speech balloons. It also provides ideas for greeting cards, flip books, and posters. 

Spying animals

Animal Snoops: The Wondrous World of Wildlife Spies
by Peter Christie


The animal kingdom is filled with spies. By observing and listening in on other animals, these wildlife spies can find a mate, elude predators, find homes, and catch prey. Thus you get stories about iguanas paying attention to mockingbird calls to avoid hungry hawks, monkeys watching troop activity to determine friend from foe, and squirrels digging fake storage holes to thwart would-be food thieves.

An appealing presentation makes this book ideal for young animal-lovers.

Animals do gross things

Exploding Ants: Amazing Facts About How Animals Adapt
by Joanne Settel


Larva that look like bird droppings, worms that live inside dog noses, frogs using their eyeballs to swallow food, and yes, ants that explode when threatened are just some of the gross and disgusting behaviors that have helped animals survive in the natural world. Kids will no doubt be enthralled. The only disappointment is the book's focus on text rather than pictures, which tend to be on the small size. Also sadly, there's no photo of a blown-up ant.

Includes glossary, selected readings, and index.

Intelligent animals

Animal Smarts
by Sylvia Funston


The intelligence levels of animals, birds, and insects are explored in this good introductory book. It discusses how animals think, how they learn, and how they communicate. Kids will enjoy learning about animals using tools, animals that can count, and animals demonstrating unusual creativity to solve problems.

Introducing the brain

National Geographic Investigates: The Human Brain: Inside Your Body's Control Room
by Kathleen Simpson


This is a good introductory book about the brain. In clear language, it explains how learning occurs, how anesthesia can affect neurons, what is meant by brain plasticity, and how sleepiness affects coordination. There's also a chapter about happiness and the emotional brain.

At a concise 64 pages, this is an easy, fast read, perfect for whetting the appetite about brain science.

How the brain works

The Great Brain Book: An Inside Look at the Inside of Your Head
by H.P. Newquist


This is a fascinating in-depth look at the brain and its functions. Beginning with the history of brain science, it then dives into a detailed examination of the parts of the brain and the billions of neurons that send signals from cell to cell. Large, clearly-labelled diagrams are excellent features, as is the wealth of information about brain systems, memory, sleep, and early brain surgery. The sidebar on lobotomies is spectacularly gruesome.

A terrific book for research or casual browsing.

The man with the hole in his head

Phineas Gage: A Gruesome but True Story About Brain Science
by John Fleischman


In 1848, a freak accident occurs to a railroad worker in Cavendish, Vermont. An explosion sends a three-foot-long iron rod through the head of twenty-six year old Phineas Gage. Amazingly, Phineas can still walk and talk. His recovery continues to astonish doctors to this day. 

John Fleischman tells Phineas' story with such gruesome detail that readers will be enthralled. It sounds like a modern horror story, but it really happened! Plus, it reveals a lot about brain science - how the brain works and how it affects human behaviour. Before his accident, Phineas was dependable and well-liked. After the accident, he is so unreliable, nasty, and impatient that his employers are forced to fire him. The iron rod had destroyed a key part of his brain, and he was no longer the same.

An excellent book for all readers, especially those who don't normally opt for nonfiction. Highly recommended.

Phineas' skull and the iron bar 

Human guinea pigs

For the Good of Mankind? The Shameful History of Human Medical Experimentation
by Vicki Oransky Wittenstein


It is generally understood that the first rule of ethics is to do no harm, yet great harm has been done to men, women, and children in the name of science. Many of us are aware of the atrocities inflicted on the Jews by Dr. Josef Mengele and the great damage done to African Americans in the Tuskegee Syphilis Study. Yet these were not isolated incidents. For many years, scientists, physicians, and members of the military have been using people as guinea pigs without the subjects' knowledge or informed consent. The human suffering has been immense: tuberculosis toxin injected into the eyes of healthy children, a female slave forced to undergo 30 operations without anesthesia, and pregnant women coerced into drinking liquids laced with radioactive iron (they were told that the drinks were good for them and their babies).

Wittenstein expertly examines the horrifying history of human medical experimentation and the often questionable reasons for doing so. She also delves into the current business of medical research and what informed consent really means. She ends with some critical analysis questions, ideal for classroom discussion.

Many readers will find this book a difficult read due to the controversial subject matter, but it needs to be read.

Medical history

Ancient Medical Technology: From Herbs to Scalpels
by Michael Woods and Mary B. Woods


This is an interesting textbook to use when studying the ancient cultures of Egypt, India, China, the Americas, Greece, and Rome. Readers will discover surprising facts about ancient surgeries and medical treatments. For instance, ancient peoples have used marijuana for ailments since 3000 B.C., Egyptians performed minor surgeries (thus their expertise in mummification), Indians performed the first plastic surgeries and early immunizations, Native American healers were skilled in setting broken bones, and Roman surgical instruments were unearthed from the ruins of Pompeii.

Extensive backmatter, consisting of timeline, source notes, bibliography, reading list, websites, and index encourage kids towards further research.

Strange medicine

I Feel Better with a Frog in My Throat: History's Strangest Cures
by Carlyn Beccia


Caterpillar fungus, skunk oil, spider webs, mustard plasters .... early medicine was filled with many strange cures that sometimes worked. Using a question-and-answer format, Beccia describes some of the methods used to treat coughs, colds, sore throats or stomachaches.

A very funny book!




Would You Believe...Cobwebs Stop Wounds Bleeding?
by Richard Platt


While Carlyn Beccia's book primarily features Western medicine, Platt's book takes a look at medical cures throughout the world. His book is filled with interesting facts, with just enough gore to keep kids reading. They'll also enjoy the photos of ancient scalpels, needles, and blood-letting kits.



Would You Believe...  (Oxford University Press) was published in the United States under a different title - Doctors Did What?! The Weird History of Medicine - but with a cover that was less than appealing.

Legendary Newfoundland doctor

Mission: the Extraordinary Adventures of Sir Wilfred Grenfell
by Colleen Shannahan


On Easter Sunday 1908, Dr. Wilfred Grenfell and seven sled dogs were hurrying to save a boy's life. Taking what he thought was a shortcut across a frozen bay, Grenfell soon found himself drifting out to sea on a disintegrating pan of ice. 

The dramatic account of his survival and rescue is interspersed with the story of Grenfell's life and how he cared for the people living in remote Newfoundland and Labrador communities. With drawings and historic photographs, the book illuminates a key part of Canadian history when doctors and hospitals were nearly nonexistent.