[REVIEW] Dave's TF Book Rant: DK Readers
Dave Van Domelen
The Awakening
The Quest
DK Readers are aimed at young readers, mixing story stuff and notes
about history, science, and so forth (at least at the "Proficient Readers"
level that these books are). Found both at the local Children's Book Store,
I kinda doubt there will be more for Armada, based on the way the rest of the
line works. Might get some for Energon, I suppose.
CAPSULES
The Awakening: Lots of basic background and then tells the story of the
first three episodes. Art from the DK sticker book and screencaps from the
show. Probably not canonical, but nice to see an "official" book define the
term Seeker. Recommended. $3.99/$5.95Cn
The Quest: Less basic background (but some, in case someone buys just
this one), covers four episodes' worth of the search for the Star Saber
Mini-Cons. And it does a better job than "Secret of the Star Saber".
Recommended. $3.99/$5.95Cn
RANTS
Common Stuff: Each is 48 pages, written by Andrew Donkin. There are
photo credits in each for the pictures included, but no art credits for the
Transformers stuff. The covers are digital collages of various characters
snipped out of the Armada comics and possibly other places, all Dreamwave
style of course. The books are 9" high by 6" wode (23cm x 15cm) with a black
band across the top and a "4" in the upper right corner to indicate their
reading level. The first page of each explains the four reading levels and
has a pic of Hot Shot (different pose in each book). Each cover page (page
3) has a more basic lineart pic. One is from the Optimus Prime lunchbox, the
other is Megatron in the same style (suggesting there may be a Megatron
lunchbox out there somewhere).
The pages have 1.5" (4cm) outer margins which are used for notes.
Sometimes these are further notes on the Transformers stuff, but usually the
notes are devoted to related topics, like Capek's R.U.R. or Atlantis or
Extraterrestrials. Sometimes these are VERY tangential, but usually they've
got a solid link to the material on the rest of the page. The main story is
told in a big font (18 point, I think) in a simple but not insulting style.
The art is a mix of the comic/toy art used in DK's stickerbook,
screencaps from the cartoon and photos from outside sources (like Capek, or a
photo of a galaxy, etc). The screencaps are sometimes magnified enough you
can see the lines go jagged, which is a bit of a disappointment. I mean,
some are really niec and sharp, but others look like they took a photo of the
TV and blew it up.
Page 48 in each is a glossary, mostly of the terms used in the
marginalia. This is not for Transformers jargon, it's a real world "improve
your reading" thing. The inside back cover is a very thorough index, both of
the learning stuff and the Transformers stuff.
In short, while there's flaws here and there, a lot more care was put
into creating this than most Transformers books/comics as far as organization
and reader-friendliness are concerned.
The Awakening: This is the Autobot book. All Autobots and their allied
Mini-Cons on the cover, Prime on the title page.
pp4-19 cover the background: Cybertron, the war, the factions and all
the characters who show up in both books (stops shy of Scavenger). The claim
is made that any jetmode Transformer is called a Seeker. The character
descriptions are very reminiscent of the official bios on
www.transformers.com, but not identical.
The rest of the book tells the story from the first three episodes,
split into a short "First Encounter" section (ep 1) and a longer
"Metamorphosis" section (eps 2-3). Marginal topics include Astronomy, caves,
Hubble Space Telescope, earthquakes, astronauts, robots (including a shot of
Maria from Metropolis), the moon, metamorphosis in animals, aliens,
cosmogeny, solar science and spyplanes (related to Laserbeak, I think). A
nice smattering of topics.
The Quest: This is the Decepticon book, with all Decepticons on the
cover and Megatron on the cover page.
pp4-13 are an abbreviated version of most of the stuff from pp4-19 in
The Awakening. The Mini-Cons and The Kids get as much space here as in The
Awakening, though.
The saved space is used to cover four episodes' worth of story,
collecting the three Air Defense Team Mini-Cons and then assembling the Star
Saber. There's good inter-section referencing, when they margin notes
discuss a Mini-Con they also say which part of the story introduced him.
The "marginal" notes in this one are more likely to bleed over into the
main column, with nice big diagrams of volcanos and mythic Atlantis. There's
also a few "buh?" moments, like the mention of Excalibur, which doesn't
really give enough information for the ref to make sense to kids. :)
Overall: Really nice little books for kids, and a good source of art and
screencaps for older artists looking for references on paper. A nice change
after the horrible disappointment of "Secret of the Star Saber".
Dave Van Domelen, good week for Artifacts....