Diana Thung

Fi, a young girl who likes to take pictures, accompanies her professor father to the small hamlet of Calico. Something mysterious is going on in the forest and Fi, along with her new-found friend Jaden, are caught up in saving the town from the strange men in the forest who are also leasing an empty storefront in town.
AUGUST MOON, a graphic novel by Diane Thung, considers the legend of the Soul Fire; floating lights in the sky that supposedly represent the souls of departed ancestors. It took awhile to really get into the feeling of the drawings but once I got a sense of it, it became somewhat magical. Thung relies on facial expressions and action scenes rather than lengthy conversations to convey a message. Her use of line is just sufficient to render emotion - sometimes deep emotion - that I felt along with the character.
My favorite ‘characters’ are the floating ‘animals’ carrying lanterns. I’m not sure what they’re called but they sure are floaty, ethereal, and otherworldly. I’m a sucker for floaty things. Especially if they glow like the lanterns these animals hold at the end of poles
Not everything is revealed, which left me thinking things over after I’d finished the book. It stuck with me. I’ll be thinking about this story for awhile. There are some things that go unanswered that kind of bugged me. What exactly IS going on in the forest? How can a group of men eat that many biscuits? What is with that Lilliput song?
Thung does a great job in making each character an individual personality, although the fact that every major villain held a cigarette was pretty funny to me. Does smoking make one a villain?
Generally an interesting book, AUGUST MOON is a quick, enchanting tale.

This review was written after reading an advance copy loaned to me by the publisher. No money was paid to me for this review.… (más)