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Library | Material Type | Item Barcode | Shelf Number | Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Searching... North Park Library | Children's book | 38674122250366 | JUV GN SHIGA | Searching... Unknown |
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Searching... Tuckahoe Library | Children's book | 38674116306042 | JUV GN SHIGA | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
Chocolate or Vanilla? This simple choice is all it takes to get started with Meanwhile, the wildly inventive creation of comics mastermind Jason Shiga, of whom Scott McCloud said "Crazy + Genius = Shiga." Jimmy, whose every move is under your control, finds himself in a mad scientist's lab, where he's given a choice between three amazing objects: a mind-reading device, a time-travel machine, or the Killitron 3000 (which is as ominous as it sounds). Down each of these paths there are puzzles, mysterious clues, and shocking revelations. It's up to the reader to lead Jimmy to success or disaster.
Meanwhile is a wholly original story of invention, discovery, and saving the world, told through a system of tabs that take you forward, backward, upside down, and right side up again. Each read creates a new adventure!
Awards and praise for Jason Shiga
2004 Eisner Award
2003 Ignatz Award
2007 Stumpton Trophy Award
1999 Xeric Grant Recipient
"Crazy + Genius = Shiga" -Scott McCloud, author of Understanding Comics
"If humankind ever finds itself at the brink of its own destruction and I am given the task to fill a small, space-bound time capsule with a collection of ten graphic novels that would present to alien eyes the best that the cartoonists of Earth had to offer the universe, Jason Shiga's Meanwhile would surely be among my picks." -Gene Luen Yang, author of American Born Chinese
"A creator of comix that can be at once funny, disturbing, thoughtful, deconstructed, and cleverly put together." -Time online
"Meanwhile is a wallop of a book/graphic novel! It delivers action, choices, problem solving, and engagement. And it reminds me of my own efforts in writing Choose Your Own Adventure, which I take as a great compliment coming from Jason Shiga. I wish I had written this book! Run, don't walk, to your favorite bookseller and pick up a copy!" -R. A. Montgomery, Choose Your Own Adventure author
"Ingenious" -Edward Packard, Choose Your Own Adventure author
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 4-6-Shiga introduces readers to a whole new technique of reading comics. Jimmy must decide if he wants chocolate or vanilla ice cream. That's the first choice readers face in order to determine the fate of the world in this "Choose Your Own Adventure" style graphic novel. Rather than reading panels left to right, color-coded tubelike lines send children in the direction the panels should be read, from right to left/left to right, up to down/down to up, and flipping backwards to pages rather than going forward. Tabs on the edge of the pages help move the tubes along, directing readers to which page to read next. If a tube splits into two paths from a panel, readers then must choose which scenario to follow. Illustrations are drawn in ink, with color overlay. The text is clearly written by hand and will be easily deciphered by readers. Seasoned graphic-novel fans will be entertained by selecting scenarios throughout this action-packed book while developing problem-solving skills. Thousands of story possibilities will guarantee them a different experience each time they pick up this book. However, some readers may have to run their finger along the tube lines to keep track of their place in the story's path, as some of them can be quite long or zigzagged.-Janet Weber, Tigard Public Library, OR (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
A mathematician/cartoonist whose best works (Bookhunter; Fleep) play with form and logic, Shiga has created both an enchanting graphic novel and a delightful physical object. Building on the concept of the Choose Your Own Adventure books, Shiga allows readers to select among thousands of story lines. The first question is simple: "Chocolate or vanilla?" From there, readers follow thin tubes and tabs in circuitous paths throughout the book, dictated by their choices. Sometimes the story takes a reader right to left through panels on the page, sometimes up or down, and readers' decisions may have them skip forward or backward throughout the text. Plots include time machines, doomsday devices, quantum physics, and a giant squid. The charming, cartoony illustrations, bursting with color and energy, lend a wry counterpoint to the often disastrous outcomes of the many possible plots. In the electronic media era, it's refreshing to encounter a work that makes such unique use of the physical nature of the book. Young readers will likely spend hours finding new ways to wend a path through the pages of this innovative book. Ages 8-up. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
An amped-up Choose-Your-Own-Adventure tale, Shiga's amazingly complex graphic novel begins with a boy ordering ice cream. Chocolate or vanilla? After readers pick a flavor, they follow a tube to connecting frames on page after page. As readers make more choices, they create their own story (or stories) involving a scientist and his inventions. It's an involving reading experience--and dizzyingly fun. (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
All choices have weight, even the most banal. The beginning of this highly inventive Choose-Your-Own-Adventureesque graphic novel prompts its readers to first choose between chocolate or vanilla ice creamwhich leads them to endings from the utterly bizarre to the devastatingly apocalyptic. After choosing between the two flavors, Jimmy, the precocious young hero of the story, accidentally stumbles upon a mysterious science lab and the aloof Professor K. The Professor has three machines: a time-travel machine, a mind-melding device and a contraption that can control entropy. Through a twisting, winding maze of tubes and tabs, each choice leads readers to a new page, with unpredictable story lines ranging from the ordinary and unremarkable to the end of the world. Overall, this is a truly ingenious graphic novel in its construction; however, the plots for some adventures can be shallow, confusing or frustratingly circular, leading readers back to the same spot. With a hidden code contained within and flaws aside, this clever book should amuse for hours. That said, make your choice carefully. (Graphic fiction. 10 up) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* In this graphic-novel mind boggler, Shiga blows the choose-your-own-adventure concept out of the water. Readers play the role of little Jimmy and on the first page make the seemingly innocuous decision of ordering a vanilla or chocolate ice-cream cone. Tubes connect panels in all directions and veer off into tabs to other pages, creating a head-spinningly tangled web of a story (well, stories; the book claims to have 3,856 different possibilities). The crux is that Jimmy stumbles into the lab of an affable mad scientist and is allowed to tinker with three inventions: a mind reader, a time machine, and the Killitron, which obliterates all life on earth aside from the user's. Jimmy's carefree fiddling with the three devices isn't merely a way to lead readers through the subsequent head trip of an adventure; it's also just about the perfect kid-friendly initiation to the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics (no, really), in which each decision and action split reality into distinct parallel universes. It's unfathomably, almost unreasonably complex. Given this book and a distraction-free hour or two, readers will either end up looking like Jimmy on the cover clutching their skulls in googly-eyed exasperation or will arrive at a nifty new way of looking at reality. It's maddening and challenging, all right, but that's precisely what makes it so crazy fun.--Chipman, Ian Copyright 2010 Booklist
