Gracefully switching between text and comics, comics and text, author Remy Lai feeds breadcrumbs (or, more accurately, cake crumbs) of humor and sequential art to kids, luring them towards a storyline with a deeper, darker meaning. Pin in the Sky is by all accounts a debut, but it sure doesn’t feel that way. Far more common, then, are the books that look funny and then, when you least expect it, hit you in the gut with – BAM! – Pathos!! It’s not a bad way to go about things, if the writing can pull off the switch. The publishing world of the early 21st century has little tolerance for meaningless whimsy. I have a grudging respect for these books, since I think it’s a lot harder to get them published in today’s market. It can be simply amusing for the sake of amusement, making no attempt at being meaningful in any way. Now a hilarious novel for children can go one of two ways. I’m not avoiding the serious stuff, but through a series of unlikely events I found myself diving deep into funny book after funny book. Though I didn’t quite mean to, I ended up reading a whole slew of middle grade novels that were funny. This year, I stumbled into an unexpected pattern. Henry Holt and Company (an imprint of Macmillan)
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