The world of beginning reader comics and graphic novels is growing rapidly. Toon Books has dominated the scene for the last ten years with their leveled books, while blockbusters like Narwhal and Jelly bridge kids from leveled readers into Dog Man. A lot of beginning reader comics are very simple stories and full of silliness. While everyone loves silliness some of the time, older kids who are still struggling with reading might want something a little more substantial, but don’t have the confidence for more complex language and stories. Enter Pup Detectives. With a satisfying trade paperback size and format, the large font and efficient dialog deliver action packed mysteries that an emerging reader can easily digest. While I only read the first three books for this review, Simon and Schuster has published six books in the series this year in quick succession, created by the powerhouse international creative agency Glass House Graphics. Who doesn’t love handing a young reader a nice stack of comics to sink their teeth into?
The Pup Detectives series is set at Pawston Elementary where the student body is made up of anthropomorphized animals. While there’s a wide variety of animal types from cheetahs to rabbits to owls, most of our main characters are dogs. Book one, The First Case, has the team assemble chapter by chapter, starting with Rider Woofson. He begins the book with a hard boiled detective narration about the dark side of Pawston and the pencil theft ring he’s trying to crack. Rora Gooddog joins him early in the book, a practical and competent foil to Rider’s impetuous nature. Once they’ve joined forces they take on the mystery of a lunchroom thief terrorizing the school. Red herrings Westie Barker and Ziggy Flulffenstuff are added to the fold until the book ends with the group deciding on the name “P.I. Pack”. Books two and three, The Tiger’s Eye and The Soccer Mystery, follow the team as they foil the heist of a priceless artifact and save kidnapped soccer players in time for the big game.
I have my doubts Felix Gumpaw is the pseudonym of an individual writer, but I wasn’t able to find out any details. The writing is clear and consistent. Each pup is an easily understood trope: Rider is going headlong into adventure, Rora thinks things through and gets the job done, Westie is an absent minded scientific genius and Ziggy’s running joke hunger lands him in surprisingly helpful situations. There’s not a lot of character development, the focus of the books is much more on hijinks and adventure. There are tons of puns, especially in The Soccer Mystery, with players Lion L. Messy and David Geckom. Most important for the emerging readers, there are very rarely more than four sentences on each page. Even some of the level 2 Toon Books have blocks of text that may intimidate readers, Pup Detectives manages a great economy of words to move forward the story. They aren’t brilliant or touching; as an adult reader I didn’t find them particularly interesting, but as a librarian and parent I see how they make a 2nd or 3rd grader still a little unsteady with reading sit down and read for half an hour straight. Popcorn reading at its poppiest and corniest, in the best possible way.
The digital art by illustrator Walmir Archanjo is cartoonish and bright. Some of the pups are recognizable as specific dog breeds, others are more generic. I enjoyed seeing the many ways different animals were fit into human form. Often the characters are clearly copied and pasted, similar poses repeating, but it’s not too disruptive. There are establishing backgrounds sprinkled throughout with most panels filled in by different vivid shades. The large print all caps text is beneficial to kids with vision problems and dyslexia, something I’m often looking for to satisfy elementary patrons who want something beyond picture books. Word balloons become jagged with intense emotions and energy. There is a great sense of movement that animates the many action sequences, an anime or manga sensibility coming through. The art serves the zippy fun of the books.
Every children’s collection should carry this series with its fun filled adventures that will build confidence in shaky readers who feel like they should have moved on from beginning reader books. Kids who have been fans of Scooby Doo and Paw Patrol will step easily into the subject matter and kids who already enjoy more wordy series like Dog Man and Geronimo Stilton will find a lot to enjoy, too. Some continuing threads like the henchpup Rotten Ruffhouse and the mastermind Matty Meow run through the books, but the plots don’t build off of each other. You can easily enjoy them out of order.
The Pup Detectives, vols. 1-3 By Felix Gumpaw Art by Walmir Archanjo Simon & Schuster Little Simon, 2021 Vol. 1: The First Case, ISBN: 9781534474949 Vol. 2: The Tiger’s Eye, ISBN: 9781534474970 Vol. 3: The Soccer Mystery, ISBN: 9781534478701 Publisher Age Rating: 5-9
NFNT Age Recommendation: Easy Readers (5-9) Creator Representation: Afro-Latinx
“Which is better—the sweet lie, or the bitter truth?”
Elysia Puente grapples with these options as she explores the New York City subway system during a Category 3 hurricane. She’s looking for her little brother, Angel, who called her in a moment of desperation. Even though they are both adult age, she sees herself as his protector and braves a series of supernatural challenges in search of her brother as well as the truth between them. Her complete story envelopes not only her and her brother, but an entire family history’s worth of deceit.
Submerged is a taut, imaginative look at family trauma through a series of lenses. Over the course of its four chapters, Elysia’s journey sees her gradually coming to terms with the impact her parents had on her and her brother. For example, at one point, Elysia runs past a couple of posters on the subway station wall: one saying ‘Don’t give up on yourself—Seek help,’ the other, ‘Judy’s Pies—Just like mom’s!’ This background detail foreshadows the spectre of Elysia’s mother, a real piece of work. She always pushed a rigid standard of living on Elysia’s life to the point of abuse, followed by forcefully apologizing to the point of a different but equally harmful abuse. She hugs Elysia too tight when she’s a child and forces her to switch schools so that she can’t see her girlfriend. She argues with teenage Elysia to not go to college. The mother’s reasons are always presented as for the father’s sake, but she is still enforcing that dominance on her daughter.
The story is straightforward enough on its own, with Elysia witnessing flashbacks to her childhood that gradually build an overarching narrative with a couple of concluding twists. However, readers who engage with the mythological name-dropping and symbolism will have plenty to digest. True to Greek myth, Phlegethon Station is all fire and smoke, just like its Greek underworld namesake, the river of fire. News reports about the hurricane above reference areas of New York City being submerged in “the river,” begging comparisons to the River Styx and the passage of the dead to the afterlife. Elysia even uses tokens to get in and out of the subway system, and the train conductor is blind like Charon, the ferryman of myth. Parallels to Odysseus’s and Orpheus’s classic journeys abound for readers to recognize.
Elysia is an entertaining character to follow. As she witnesses memories of dramatic arguments with her family, she makes self-aware comments such as, ‘If I live through this I’m never having kids, I swear to god’ and ‘My therapist is going to have a field day with this.’ She and her family are bilingual, and the parents consider Elysia’s consistent use of English a sign of disrespect. Elysia’s preference for girls is treated more severely, almost like a betrayal. Elysia uses the word ‘dyke’ to describe how she thinks others see her, and graffiti in the station uses that word as well, reflecting the pain she is revisiting.
A number of lettering effects are employed throughout the story. Dotted word balloons are used to show whispering. Gray lettering conveys an echo. Spiky balloons broadcast phone messages. Big, bold, yellow letters are used for sound effects. A variety of coloring and layout effects are also used. For example, in a scene of tracks changing direction, the page layout turns sideways, though it presents no additional difficulties in reading the content. As the storm worsens near the end of the book, the gutters themselves become watery blue lines of water running along the page. While the station is often bathed in shadows and populated with colorful ghosts, the train cars that display Elysia’s flashbacks each use different palettes, including black outlines switching to light browns.
The story also addresses gender roles from Elysia and Angel’s points of view. Angel fights Elysia over a dinosaur toy in childhood, saying it’s for boys, then apologizes. Elysia always bears the nickname La Princesa from her father, a term of affection but also control. Their father’s criminal empire places uniquely violent burdens on Angel’s shoulders. As a young man, Angel wants to prove himself to his father and freaks out the first time Angel impulsively uses a gun to kill someone—he says it was an accident. Later on, when he is assigned a hit, he refuses to pull the trigger and says about it, ‘It felt good, okay? I felt like a goddamn man, for once in my life.’ Later on, Elysia reflects, ‘If I don’t let go of the anger and resentment about the past, I’ll never leave it behind.’ Escape from the supernatural subway is an exercise in reflection, confession, and ultimately forgiveness.
Submerged is an excellent graphic novel that fits in a number of categories, such as queer, Spanish-language, horror, magical realism, and crime. The horror/violent content is fairly mild, with some tears of blood here and stabbing a giant caterpillar with a sword there. Other mature content, such as alcohol consumption, multiple four-letter words, and the aforementioned homophobic slur, place this squarely in older teen and adult territory.
Submerged By Vita Ayala Art by Lisa Sterle ISBN: 9781939424426 Vault, 2019
Browse for more like this title NFNT Age Recommendation: Older Teen (16-18), Adult (18+) Character Traits: Afro Latina Lesbian Creator Highlights: BIPOC Creator, LGBTQIA+ Creator
The world of beginning reader comics and graphic novels is growing rapidly. Toon Books has dominated the scene for the last ten years with their leveled books, while blockbusters like Narwhal and Jelly bridge kids from leveled readers into Dog Man. A lot of beginning reader comics are very simple stories and full of silliness. While everyone loves silliness some of the time, older kids who are still struggling with reading might want something a little more substantial, but don’t have the confidence for more complex language and stories. Enter Pup Detectives. With a satisfying trade paperback size and format, the large font and efficient dialog deliver action packed mysteries that an emerging reader can easily digest. While I only read the first three books for this review, Simon and Schuster has published six books in the series this year in quick succession, created by the powerhouse international creative agency Glass House Graphics. Who doesn’t love handing a young reader a nice stack of comics to sink their teeth into?
“Which is better—the sweet lie, or the bitter truth?”
