Monday, August 20, 2012

Amulet: Prince of the Elves by Kazu Kibuishi

Emily survived the chaos of the Guardian Academy, but Max Griffin has stolen the Mother Stone.  With it, the Elf King forges new Amulets that will give him the power to invade and destroy the nation of Windsor.  Emily and her friends lead the soldiers of the Cielis Guard in a fight to stop him, but Max stands in their way.  And when she seeks information form the Voice of her Amulet, she discovers that the Voice is much more sinister than she ever could have imagined. (publishers description)

This is the fifth volume in Kibuishi's Amulet series.  In this volume we learn a bit about Max's background, and while I know he's suppose to be evil and all, and he's fighting against our heroes, I totally felt sympathetic for him.  He witnessed the injustices against the elves, and the tragic and unfair death of a friend caused him to take the elves' side in the war.

Emily and her brother Navin are now fighting for the Cielis Guard.  I'm not totally clear while all the pilots and leaders are kids, and the older generation is cool with taking orders from them.  I know Emily is the stonekeeper, and that carries a lot of weight, but there were other kids acting as pilots rather than adults.

Also, I was a little confused about how exactly Emily's stone was manipulating her.  It didn't really tell her to do anything, did it?

I like Kazu Kibuishi's style of art, but one issue I have is that a lot of the human characters look very similar, especially the kids.  In fairness, the ARC I had wasn't fully colored yet, so that may help, but I definitely went a few pages thinking that Navin was Max.

I like how Kibuishi uses the panels to invoke feeling.  On one page, where Navin and the robots are rising up in a kind of elevator, the panel is long and thin down the left-hand side of the page, allowing us to see how high and fast they are rising.  The use of double-paged spreads, often wordless, is also well done, creating a powerful impact.

Amulet: Prince of Elves will be available September 1, 2012.

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