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Jeffrey’s Darth Vader series was originally geared towards adults as it was about the experience of being a parent; however, parents shared it with their kids and now both adults & kids love the series. Goodnight Darth Vader was created with both audiences in mind.

“Little Island Comics is the first kids comic book store in North America – maybe even the world!” I am not sure if I should be terrified or super excited that it’s here. Endless joy just steps away from my backyard! Will this only feed my addiction? Brand spanking new Little Island Comics opened in [...]

Alia Muhammad Baker seems an unlikely heroine.  A quiet, unassuming woman, she works as the chief librarian at the Basra Central Library in Iraq.  In 2003, however, she is faced with an extraordinary challenge — how to save the books of her beloved library from being destroyed by the war with the invading forces of Britain and the U.S.  Alia has read books about the burning down and destruction of libraries in the ancient past — and she was horrified.  Now she faces the possibility of the very same thing happening to her library.  Can she save the books?  Read the graphic novel and find out!

Alia’s Mission: Saving the Books of Iraq by Mark Alan Stamaty (Knopf, 2004) is the account of one particularly courageous woman’s fight to protect the books of her city and nation.  Yes, librarians can be super-heroes, and Alia is a prime example of the kind of courage and determination, as well as wit and presence-of-mind that it takes to save a library from imminent ruin.   Artist Stamaty — a cartoonist for numerous outlets like the New York Times Book Review, the Washingtoon Post and the Boston Globe — has created a short but revealing graphic novel about the plight of culture in times of war.  Books do need saving; they are the repositories of a people’s ideas, culture and art.  Alia, is indeed, a heroine of an extraordinary kind.  Stamaty’s clever combination of using comic-book art to outline the story of an unlikely ’superhero’ is brilliant and I hope he continues producing more graphic novels of this kind!