Julia’s House for Lost Creatures, by Ben Hatke

[mrissa]

Review copy provided by First Second.

This is another picture book, but it was one that was much more successful for me than The Zoo Box. Julia lives in a house by the sea, at first by herself. She advertises that lost creatures are welcome and soon has a house full of trolls, ghosts, and more. The text is minimalist without being unduly spartan, letting the charming illustrations carry the day–the house, for example, is on the back of a giant turtle, and the troll plays with an old-fashioned gigantic phonograph. Julia herself has a workshop for making and fixing things, though she is not above asking for help when it’s needed.

Hatke wrote the Zita the Spacegirl comics, and he makes the jump to a shorter, more spare text gracefully while keeping a certain familiar style to the characters. Julia’s House for Lost Creatures is a little treasure I’ll be glad to keep and share–definitely a good start for First Second crossing the line from graphic novels into picture books.

Originally published at Novel Gazing Redux