Amulet: The Stonekeeper by Kazu Kibuishi

Summary (from Goodreads):

Graphic novel star Kazu Kibuishi creates a world of terrible, man-eating demons, a mechanical rabbit, a giant robot---and two ordinary children on a life-or-death mission.

After the tragic death of their father, Emily and Navin move with their mother to the home of her deceased great-grandfather, but the strange house proves to be dangerous. Before long, a sinister creature lures the kids' mom through a door in the basement. Em and Navin, desperate not to lose her, follow her into an underground world inhabited by demons, robots, and talking animals.

Eventually, they enlist the help of a small mechanical rabbit named Miskit. Together with Miskit, they face the most terrifying monster of all, and Em finally has the chance to save someone she loves.

Review:

I’ve been meaning to read this series for some time. The artwork of the covers have always super-appealed to me. The artist of the new Harry Potter paperbacks is the same one, and this reminded me again about wanting to read the Amulet series. And then my coworker just finished all of the books that are out, and recommended them to me. So, I finally gave in and checked out the whole series from the library. There will be more reviews for these coming up soon.

The artwork in here is so gorgeous that the beautiful covers don’t even come close to doing them justice. Seriously, the angles and perspectives used on the magical scenery felt more like camera angles. It was like getting the slow motion version of each frame of a beautiful movie, and the whole first book kept this up.

I loved the characters. What’s not to like about a friendly mechanical rabbit? And the monsters looked like they were imagined up by a master, like super awesome mashup of Tim Burton and Hayao Miyazaki.

The sad beginning was sort of reminiscent of Batman for me. The bad things that haunt our childhoods shape our futures seemed to be the idea. And the poor girl will definitely be haunted by her father’s death for time to come. And like Bruce Wayne, she has to grow up fast, and she seems to feel a need to redeem herself by saving her mom. The kids are the heroes here, and I love a good book with kid power.

The book has a little bit of everything that makes up a good middle grade read: magic, monsters, horror, adventure, kid power, steam punk, talking animals, and good characters. I read this first book incredibly fast and I most likely will continue to read at this quick pace; they are just so good. Though, some times I purposely slow down, to soak in the pretty illustrations. I highly recommend this one to fans of The Invention of Hugo Cabret. I give it a 10/10. I was very impressed.