The Twilight Zone Graphic Novels

My dad always wanted me to watch the Twilight Zone on television with him. I wouldn't. I had a thing about black and white TV when I was younger, and I am sorry to say that I have as yet never seen an episode. When I received the arc for The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street, and The Odyssey of Flight 33 I was intrigued, and I figured that they would make fun reading. I was right.

The Odyssey of Flight 33 caught my attention first. I am always a bit nervous when I fly, and these days of ditching in the Hudson have taken the every day feeling out of boarding a plane. Everything is going according to schedule on the Trans Ocean flight. The stewardesses don't have the kind of tea that a customer wants, others are making annoying small talk. (If you've ever been on a plane, chances are you've experienced these things!) Then all of a sudden, the crew and some passengers feel acceleration. Lots of acceleration. So much so that the instruments aren't even reading the speed anymore, and there is absolutely no contact with the ground.

All of a sudden there is a flash of white light, and things seem to even out. The pilot is eager to see land and brings the plane lower to take a look. Things do not look as they should. They get in touch with Laguardia Airport and ask for permission to land at JFK. The problem is that the folks at Laguardia have not heard of JFK. It hasn't been built yet.

Will Flight 33 ever find its way back to the present?

The Monsters are Due on Maple Street is a much uglier story that encompasses some of the paranoia present in 1950s America as well as the human condition.

The neighbors on Maple Street see what they think is a meteor late on a Saturday afternoon. Shortly thereafter all power is knocked out. Batteries included. Naturally, the folks on the street are confused and a little bit frightened as well. A couple of the men decide that they should go downtown and check out what is going on when young Tommy tells them that they shouldn't go. When questioned, Tommy sites the monster movies that he has seen...aliens never want people to know what is going on.

That's all it takes...a seed of an idea. Soon neighbors are turning on one another, and in true witch hunt fashion, nobody is safe. (This also makes an excellent curriculum connection to our 7th grade study of McCarthyism).

Each of these graphic novels begins with an explanation of the television series as well as a taste Cold War America. The back matter includes information from that particular episode of The Twilight Zone as well as a background about the adaptation of the stories from screen to page.

I have to say, at first I wasn't so sure about today's kids being interested in these books. My worries were completely unfounded. Out of all of our graphic novels, these are the ones that the 6th grade boys are passing from hand to hand. As soon as Jen got them into the hands of one boy, word spread. A few of them even sat SILENTLY during an indoor recess and just read them and passed them round robin style. I know that anytime a new title in the Twilight Zone series comes in, we will no longer even have to try to sell them. Simply put them on display and they take care of themselves.

Herbert's Wormhole -- A Novel in Cartoons

I am sure that many school librarians are facing the same plight as me. "I need a book. I want something just like Diary of a Wimpy Kid." Sigh. Sure there are some choices, but not so many of them are boy slanted. So I was delighted when last week at the HarperCollins preview, Herbert's Wormhole was on the table.

When we meet Alex, he is just about to "Blow that slime-sucking freak into a gazillion space-chunks!" (p. 1) You'd think a kid would be super excited about completing a whole video game. Not Alex. At the beginning of the summer, he promised his parents that as soon as he mastered his game, he'd play outside and NOT ask for another video game for the rest of the summer. Of course, right after he made his promise the coolest video game ever arrived in the stores.

Even worse is what his parents bought him in the name of entertainment for the rest of the summer. A jungle gym. Seriously. The Safe-T-Kids Jump n' Jammin' Jungle Gym complete with swing, monkey bars, climbing wall, ladder and a spiral tunnel slide. On top of that comes the announcement that Alex's parents have arranged a play date with nerdy neighbour Herbert Slewg. Herbert likes to invent things, and he and Alex aren't exactly on the same level.

Alex faces his destiny and heads on over to Herbert's place. He finds Herbert in his bedroom dressed in an AlienSlayer:3-D bodysuit! Alex can't believe it. Herbert of all people has THE game. Maybe his luck is changing.

Not quite. Herbert is using the components of the video game for his latest invention. He's trying to figure out how to walk through walls, among other things.

When Herbert and Alex head on over to the jungle gym something interesting happens. Alex is messing around and flipping the switch on the bodysuit that Herbert modified. All of a sudden a weird "wubba-wubba" sound starts to come out of the slide, and Alex feels a strong pull. Before they know it, fwooop! The boys are sucked through time. Not to the past, like they originally think, but instead toward the future.

They are in the same town of Merwinsville, but everything is different. Firstly, there are G'daliens all over. They are hideous tentacled creatures who wear wigs and speak in Aussie accents in order to appear friendly. Then there is the fact that everything is so clean. No cars, no litter, no pollution. Herbert is enamoured, but Alex is wary. What are all these creepy aliens doing, and why are they in charge?

More importantly, how are Alex and Herbert going to get home?

Filled with slapstick humour, and gross-out moments, Herbert's Wormhole is bound to find enthusiastic readers. From zero gravity t-ball, to bumper car pizza joints, Herbert's Wormhole has a bit of something for everyone. While the plot line reminds me more of The True Meaning of Smekday, than it does Wimpy Kid, the cartoon format is reader friendly and will likely inspire some artistically inclined kids to come up with their own adventures with the G'daliens. Since I read the arc, I missed out on quite a bit of the artwork, and I am looking forward to the pub date of 5/2009 to check out the final copy.

(Ed to add: Check out the website!)