Friday 3 February 2012

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Review: Slog's Dad by David Almond, illustrated by Dave McKean (#Ad)

Slog's Dad by David Almond, illustrated by Dave McKeanSlog's Dad by David Almond, illustrated by Dave McKean

I was sent this review copy for free by Walker for the purpose of providing an honest review.

Do you believe there’s life after death? Slog does. He reckons that the scruffy bloke sitting outside the pork shop is his dad come back to visit him for one last time – just like he’d said he would, just before he died. Slog’s mate Davie isn’t convinced. But how does this man know everything Slog’s dad would know? Because Slog says it really is his dad, that’s how. From Amazon UK

I had this book left over from when I planed to do Death and Bereavement Month last year, which became a week event instead. This book really doesn't have me as the intended audience, because I simply didn't get it.

Story wise, I suppose it was kind of cute. Slog is convinced this homeless guy he sees is his dead Dad, though his best mate, Davie, thinks he's been taken in by this man and it's a packof lies. I finished it not knowing whether it actually was his Dad, or just a kind homeless man who wanted to help a grief-stricken kid. I'm not sure, but it was sweet.

However, this is a graphic novel, but not in the conventional sense. It's pages of illustration without any text, then pages of text without illustration. However, the illustrations don't seem to match the text, and although I made some guess that some of the illustrations were to do with Slog wanting his Dad back and pretending with toys, others, I had no idea what was going on. And it's really not my kind of art either. I didn't like them. Not my cup of tea at all.

So I would say the story would be better without the illustrations, but it's so short, without the illustrations, I can't see it being publishable. I just didn't really get this book as a whole package. Not written with me in mind. But some may like this unusal take on graphic novels and story-telling.

Thank you to Walker for the review copy.

Published: 6th September 2010
Publisher: Walker
David Almond's Website
Dave McKean

4 comments:

  1. You're not having much luck with the graphic novels lately, are you? I thought this kind of cute and sweet in an odd sort of way. But it took me like 20 minutes to read altogether. I need a bit more to a story than that usually!

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    1. I know! I just didn't get the illustrations at all. Not my cup of tea. Oh well! I know what you mean, not much happened.

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  2. Hmm this doesn't sound great, I think I'd turtle with it too and I'd be really annoyed if I finished it without working out if the homeless guy was actually slogs dad or not!

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    1. It's not a long book, so I don't think you'd get too involved to be that annoyed. But yeah, didn't really work for me, unfortunately.

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