Young Katherine Johnson (Family Comic Friday)

This is the second of humorous volumes on the lives of notable figures from history during their youth I've recently read by the French cartoonist Augel. This selection was chosen for Black History Month as it features noted math genius Katherine Johnson. Her work as a 'human calculator ' for NASA helped the space program win the race to the moon with the Apollo 11 landing in 1969. She was even personally requested by John Glenn to confirm his contradictory calculations during his historic Friendship 7 orbital mission in 1962.

Just like with the Agatha Christie volume, there's interactive activities for readers. Instead of solving mysteries, your tasked with solving mathematical word problems. Math not being my strong suit, I prefer solving a crime over doing algebra any day. Though I will begrudgingly admit that if I had paid a tiny bit more attention, I would have correctly solved more of those problems than I did. Though let's be honest, Augel cheated a little in that problem involving the blocks!

You explore both humorous as well as thoughtful situations in this look at Katherine Johnson. You'll experience her life as a young black girl in the segregated mountains of West Virginia as well as the stigma of being a female who's life interest were in the male dominated fields of science and math. Katherine also explored the limits of her imagination with her beloved pet chicken Luncinda, and her celestial friend, the Moon. 

Young Katherine Johnson was an adorable book. Another success by Augel. Teachers will love this book as the last 10 or so pages are a lesson guide for Black History Month, science and math and astronomy and physics. Parents and guardians will love how the young readers in their lives will learn and be entertained through reading. And maybe they'll want to do some of the extra activities and science experiments in the back of this graphic novel! There's potential for fun for the whole class AND family!

Worth Consuming!

Young Agatha Christie (Family Comic Friday)

French cartoonist William Augel presents young readers with an assortment of educational graphic novels about the early lives of famous people. Commonly known by just his last name, Augel, the artist combines biographical fact with a series of funny vignettes. In Young Agatha Christie, Augel shows the acclaimed mystery writer aspiring to write crime fiction while making her way in a male dominated world. Plus, with the help of her rag doll Miss Marple, Agatha solves several mysteries in which you, the reader gets to deduce yourself, much in the vein of Encyclopedia Brown.

Humanoids Inc. imprint BiG presents this English adaptation of Augel's 2022 French graphic novel Le Petit Agatha Christie. My local library had several volumes of Augel's historical fiction accounts of notable people. I'll be reviewing another volume in February in celebration of Black History Month. This book was a library edition containing an intensive teacher's lesson guide. There's discussion questions, activity ideas, recommended further readings, and even ways in which this book aligns with Common Core education for third and fourth graders.

I thought this was a funny book. I'm a fan of Agatha Christie. I just don't read as much of it as I should. Still, I had a lot of fun catching many of the Easter eggs hidden inside this book. Plus I had a lot of fun solving those Miss Marple mysteries. I thought most of them were fair. I totally goofed on one solution not reading the whole episode fully. I did think that the mystery of finding the missing furniture in Agatha's dollhouse was a bit of a cheat. It sounds like you're supposed to only find 1 missing piece. Augel gets sneaky and hides 2 items in that mystery!

Of all the authors in the world, I'm not really sure why Augel selected Agatha Christie. I'm not complaining, as I had a lot of fun with this book. It's just that the kiddos who this book is aimed towards, ages 8-10, aren't old enough to read Agatha Christie mysteries yet. And in our current world, I feel like if a teacher decided to utilize the lesson plans in the back of the book for their classroom, I'm sure there would be some parents complaining about appropriateness. Common Core or not!

Agatha Christie was a pioneering woman who stood out in, at the time, a literary genre that was predominantly written by males. Without Christie, you wouldn't female mystery writers like Sue Grafton and Rita Mae Brown or true crime chronicler Ann Rule. Let's not forget, Agatha Christie was also an early participant in introducing surfing to the women of the world. 

If anything, this was a book that entertained as well as informed. I loved how this book was interactive and I hope that next months read will be just as fun. Maybe Agatha Christie isn't the subject you want your child to learn about at this time. But Augel has at least 4 other volumes about famous folks as youths that might meet parent and guardian approval. There's something for everyone and hopefully more from Augel on the horizon.

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.