More fun stories from Big Nate. He breaks up with his seventh grade girlfriend in order to spend more time with his friends. And even though he's still in school, at least his favorite teacher is back. We get to see Nate make a film with Gina and Chad and there is more time spent with Dee Dee (who I am really enjoying as a character and am glad to see more of.)
After moving to LA to follow her boyfriend, Daphne Walters, like so many before her, has been summarily dumped. While moping about it, she wanders into a courtyard with a pool and decides to dip in. While underwater, she sees her first ghost. It seems that the courtyard is surrounded by an apartment building that houses ghosts from a number of decades. But not all of the ghosts are friendly and Daphney is about to find that out the hard way.
Wendy and Maureen are sisters so involved in their own world that we rarely even see their parents. They sometimes love each other, and sometimes they just don't agree. Wendy likes to read Maureen's diary, copy everything she does, and steal her clothes. Maureen likes to ditch Wendy when she can.
Big Nate has a girlfriend! And she's a seventh grader! I wish there had been a little more repercussions for Nate being a little gross about Trudy- or at least some more realization on Nate's part that she might not want to be talked about like she was around just for Nate's pleasure but there is little that pierces Nate's shield of obliviousness.
Nancy Drew has just moved to a new school and some of the first people she meets are Frank and Joe Hardy. With a mixture of characters from the Hardy Boys and from Nancy Drew (though, why cut Bess? And why so many male characters?), this definitely isn't like either of the original series. For one thing, Nancy never actually says that she's a detective. Frank and Joe are depected as rather bumbling.
I don't know if a book less than twenty years old can rightly be called a classic but this is certainly a reissue of a book that originally came out in 2001 -- one that has the gritty appeal of a 1950s hardboiled detective mystery with some twists that I haven't read before (though I expect they may be more common that I believe): the detective in this case is a female, a widow to be exact, and it's set in Paris.
Swashbuckler Lucy loves to kill vampires. And maybe people. But using her sword is awesome. So when she meets Lord Byron (yes, that Lord Byron,) who is also hunting vampires, she hops right on board his giant, psychic eagle, Napoleon. Granted, her first choice would have been to be inducted into the secret vampire society but Byron keeps interrupting her interludes with Lady Violet (who may be a secret vampire cult leader....or a great pretender, if you believe Gladys De Harridan, an EXTREMELY old vampire.)
Once again, Lincoln Peirce gives us a great collection of Big Nate comics. I love reading these books as a bit of a palate cleanser. Clean and fun, Nate never fails to make me smile with his hijinks. And getting to see his grandparents again was a delight. Grandpa and Nate resonate on the same level and it is just so fun to see. We also get to see Teddy and Francis roll their eyes at Nate and Gina is back as his younger arch-nemesis. Older nemesis, Mrs. Godfrey is back as well.