YES ALWAYS SPOILERS
Hello everyone, I’m back with a different type of read this time: a graphic novel adaptation of Mr. Lemoncello’s Library. I read the original novel in about 6th grade, and ended up reading the whole series; the books were right up my alley. The plot follows a group of 12 12-year-olds trying to escape a library created by an eccentric “gazillionaire”, Mr. Lemoncello. The main character, Kyle Keeley, and his friends/team end up escaping first and winning a bunch of cool stuff.
The graphic novel does the series justice by sticking to the original plot, and there are pros and cons to the new form the book takes. One of the pros is that there was visible character diversity in the graphic novel. Sierra, a friend of Kyle's, was black in the graphic novel, something I didn’t realize was the case in the original. Maybe the graphic novel artist changed Sierra’s race, or maybe I don't read as carefully as I should. Another pro is (obviously) the ability to show the reader amazing settings the book takes place in, such as the main one and the book title, Mr. Lemoncello’s library. The graphic novel shows a massive domed ceiling with amazing holographic statues; something a little hard to picture if we haven't seen it in real life ourselves.
The one con of this new graphic novel format for Mr. Lemoncello’s library is the inability to engage the reader with minigames in the writing. In the original novel, the first letter of the first word of each chapter spelled a phrase, but in the graphic novel, such was not the case. I enjoyed the detail Chris Grabenstein, the author, put into the novel; there was less so of that in the graphic novel.
The new form of one of my all-time favorite book series has pros and cons, but in my short example of things that stood out to me, the pros won. I enjoyed this book, and if anyone has read either, I encourage them to read the other version if they haven't had a chance. Thanks for reading!
I remember reading a couple pages of a book in Elementary school that I think was this book, but I'd forgotten about it until now. I think you did a good job summarizing some of the good and bad things about the graphic novel compared to the book.
ReplyDelete