Gronk: A Monster's Story Volume 1 - a comic by Katie Cook

Synopsis

Gronk is a monster... and not a very good one. 

Gronk tells the tale of a young monster who has turned her back on monsterdom (mostly because no one found her scary) and has become fascinated with humans. 

She moves in with her human friend Dale and her pets Kitty and Harli, a 160 lb. Newfoundland Dale wants to declare as a dependent to the IRS. 

Enjoy the first installment from this popular kids webcomic in a wonderful, full-color collection!

Review

Lovely, sweet and amusing, Gronk is an inventive comic and the art and words depict a great sense of humour and fun. Gronk is a lovely monster who isn't interested in scaring anyone; instead she enjoys company, friendship and adventure, and she finds all this when she meets Dale and accepts her kind invitation to move in with her and her pets Kitty the cat and Harli the dog. 

One of my favourite pages was the one where Gronk gets in the cardboard box with Kitty the cat, and her imagination conjures up some great scenes that are sketched out. I love Harli the dog. It's sixty pages, I enjoyed reading the whole book in one sitting - it collates the episodes shared via the original webcomic. The original wonderful black and white illustrations have been coloured for this book by Kevin Minor. 

Gronk features likeable characters, and includes references to Harry Potter and other popular culture. I'm sure children will love it, and adults too - I did.

The website for the original webcomic is here: Gronk Comic

Digital review copy via netgalley.

Kellie at Come-alive Cottage - Wendy Unsworth

This delightful and fun children's book by Wendy Unsworth tells the story of Kellie Culpepper, who comes from a long line of explorers, with her parents being 'the greatest explorers of them all!' They are preparing to set out on their latest adventure, and Kellie cannot go with them this time. Instead she is due to stay with one of her Aunts, who has a very fitting name. However, this particular Aunt has a propensity to be a little bit silly, and things don't go as planned, so Kellie instead discovers she has an Aunt named Kitty, who is 'unusual and very, very interesting'. Aunt Kitty lives at Come-alive Cottage, a lovely house in the countryside. Kitty is unlike any Aunt you might have met before; she is quite magical in fact, as is her special home, where strange, unexpected and wonderful things happen. Kellie is in for quite an adventure at Come-alive Cottage!

Told in eight short chapters, this is a really enjoyable book, a sweet story that would be ideal to read aloud; the author has used some lovely phrases to build her story, and I was excited every time another 'whoosh!' occurred! I loved the affectionate names Kellie's father had for her, such as his 'Little Butternut Squash.'

The illustrations by Frances Lee West are great fun too and fit so nicely alongside the text; it feels as though some care and thought has gone into the placement of the illustrations, and they really embellish the story very nicely, and include some clever plays on words.

A lovely book that is great fun to read, telling a magical, well written tale with great illustrations.

Source - author review copy in exchange for an honest review
Self-published - available in paperback and as an e-book
The second book in this series, Danger at Come-alive Cottage, is available now too.

Impeccable Petunia - Katie Christine

Impeccable Petunia Part 1: Claws, Paws, Feathers and Jaws

‘The only chick with black and white markings, Petunia stood out, and often found herself the subject of other chick’s ridicule, and worse.’

Petunia is a hen who prefers spending her time in her own little garden full of beautiful, colourful flowers, rather than the confines of the chicken coop or the company of the other hens.

‘The hen yard felt small and oppressive, but amidst the confinement and crowded quarters, Petunia had carved out her own little piece of joy. Her garden lay tucked into a forgotten corner at the far end of the fence.’

Bernadette, with ‘piercing, bulging eyes’, is the hen who tries to rule the roost and dominate the other chicks, whilst Francine is the head of the brood. However, the Orpas are the ones to really be afraid of... Sadly, Petunia has several encounters with these unfriendly hens as she is different in her ways from them, and therefore distrusted.

Petunia offers companionship to the lady who lives in the house, learning new things all the time, and she derives much happiness from the time she spends with Silkie, as she has named the lady. She is alone amongst the hens in enjoying spending time with a human; the others viewed humans ‘with the utmost suspicion and contempt.’ Macy is the resident cat, with whom Petunia has some interesting and surprising encounters as an unusual kind of friendship forms.

The story encompasses themes of loneliness and being different, of cruel bullying and finding unexpected friendship. Through the behaviour of the hens towards Petunia, who finds herself at the bottom of the pecking order, the author demonstrates how cliques can gang up on individuals and cause fear through their intimidation of them.

The illustrations are excellent; really gorgeous pictures at the start of each chapter which relate to that part of the story immediately to come.

I was impressed by the quality of the writing and the language used. This is a strong story and the characters really came to life as I read. The garden is vividly evoked and Petunia’s little world is richly imagined. I felt glad for her as she ventured out into the unknown and discovered new things; she represents the bravery of the individual to break away from the crowd and please themselves, despite strong pressure to conform. 

There is some violence towards Petunia which makes this unsuitable for very young children I think, but the situations within the story could certainly be removed from the chicken coop and placed in a school playground context and discussed if one were dealing with bullying and being different. As this is billed as part 1, and the ending is rather open, I would be interested to find out what happens next.

There's a website here where you can find out more about the book and the couple who have created it, as well as view the illustrations. 

Thanks very much to the author for sending an ebook copy of this story to read and review.