For every five copies of Kid Beowulf and the Blood-Bound Oath, by Alexis E. Fajardo, and Visibility, by Sarah Neufeld, sold during the month of December, Bowler Hat Comics will donate one to a school, library, or charity of our choice. ALL sales during the month of December will be tallied. The more you buy, the more we give! Visit the event page on Facebook for more information and quick links to purchase.

Readers Anonymous, a reading group associated with Grant County High School, recently welcomed Visibility author, Sarah Neufeld, into their classroom. Well … sort of … Sarah attended the group discussion from her home via the modern marvels of technology! Thank you Skype! In the words of Caryn McGinty, who organized the discussion:

Just wanted to thank you for putting us in touch with Sarah so that our student book group could have a discussion with her. We had that this morning, and the kids LOVED it! She was wonderful to talk to – very informative and easy to understand, and great with a teen audience. The kids were really looking forward to this morning’s discussion and were very enthusiastic about it afterward.

That’s just what we like to see: kids enthusiastic about reading!

If you’re a teacher or a student interested in bringing an author into your classroom, please drop us a line!

Although we displayed upcoming releases at the fest last year, this is the first year we will have books for sale. Copies of Visibility and Kid Beowulf and the Blood-Bound Oath will be available at a discount, and pre-autographed copies will be available for a little more. Also available will be the hit Hate Mail from our sister imprint Dame Rocket Press.

Word has it that the organizers of the event are expecting a larger-than-before all-ages and family-friendly crowd, which excites this Young-Adult publisher. So bring the kids (young and old) and prepare for a fantabulous weekend! Just look for us at Table 52.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I recently made my routine visit to the site and discovered that their recent book club selection was none other than Sarah Neufeld’s Visibility! (Click here to read the strip!) What makes their book club feature really cool is that they only feature books they like! Just the fact that the book was selected makes it a favorable review. I’ve never been led astray by their recommendations, which in the past have included such cool books as Coraline by Neil Gaiman, Strangers in Paradise: High School by Terry Moore, and The Plain Janes by Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg. Check out their full list of recommendations.

So join me in extending my thanks to the creators of Unshelved for featuring Visibiity. Be sure to visit their site and read a few strips. (They recently launched a killer search engine for past strips.) If you like what you see, be sure to drop ‘em a line and let ‘em know. I’m sure they’d appreciate it.

This week will see the release of Kurosagi Corpse Delivery System, Volume 7, from Dark Horse. For a manga fan and Japanophile like Sarah, contributing to the translation of a book like this must have been a real thrill.

Congratulations Sarah!

Natalie Irving is the teenage daughter of the world’s only invisible woman. Jadyn Irving is largely invisible from Natalie’s life as well, and because her mother has refused to work with the authorities for the public good, Natalie must also deal with living in the shadow of someone who is widely disliked as well as famous. Her one constant is body-gaurd Peter, but even he has a mysterious past he keeps secret from her. With no one to really trust, Natalie must decide whether to keep her own secrets when she suddenly manifests invisibility powers herself. Unfortunately someone else has noticed.

In this confident first novel, Neufeld takes a very down-to-earth view of what it might be like if people really had powers. The story is refreshingly free from even a whiff of super villains, focusing instead on the more mundane evils of petty classmates, cold parents, and merciless crime lords. Echoing the powers motif–and Peter’s desire to become a comic book artist–several pages of paneled artwork by Meister are scattered throughout the book. Although an interesting device and a cute nod to the book’s content, these pages do not actually add much to the story, simply representing graphically scenes that have already been described. Natalie narrates the tale but is mostly a reactive character, and beyond her relationships, readers do not learn much about her. As a coming-of-age story, the book is solid and fun, enlivened by the extra ingredients of superpowers, but it does not quite push beyond interesting to exciting.

~ Lisa Martincik

This review appears in the August 2008 issue of Voice of Youth Advocates (VOYA). It is reprinted with permission of Voice of Youth Advocates (VOYA).