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Enlarge Cover
list price: $22.95
edition:Paperback
category: Young Adult Fiction
published: Oct 2019
ISBN:9781551527772
publisher:
Arsenal Pulp Press
Description
A Quill and Quire Best Book of the Year
In this stunning graphic novel, Lacuna is a girl without a family, a past, or a proper home. She lives alone in a swamp made of ink, but with the help of Polaris, a will-o'-the-wisp, she embarks for the fabled Northern Kingdom, where she might find people like her. The only way to get there, though, is to travel the strange and dangerous Blue Road that stretches to the horizon like a mark upon a page. Along the way, Lacuna must overcome trials such as the twisted briars of the Thicket of Tickets and the intractable guard at the Rainbow Border. At the end of her treacherous journey, she reaches a city where memory and vision can be turned against you, in a world of dazzling beauty, divisive magic, and unlikely deliverance. Finally, Lacuna learns that leaving, arriving, returning - they're all just different words for the same thing: starting all over again.
The Blue Road - the first graphic novel by acclaimed poet and prose writer Wayde Compton and illustrator April dela Noche Milne - explores the world from a migrant's perspective with dreamlike wonder.
About the Authors
Wayde Compton has written five books and edited two literary anthologies. His collection of short stories, The Outer Harbour, won the City of Vancouver Book Award in 2015 and he won a National Magazine Award for Fiction in 2011. His work has been a finalist for two other City of Vancouver Book Awards as well as the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize. Compton has been writer-in-residence at Simon Fraser University, Green College at the University of British Columbia, and the Vancouver Public Library. Compton lives in Vancouver, BC, and teaches in the Faculty of Creative Writing at Douglas College.
April dela Noche Milne is a Filipino Canadian artist based in Vancouver. She studied fine arts at Langara College and graduated with a BFA in illustration from Emily Carr University of Art + Design. Her illustrations have been featured in Ricepaper, EVENT, and Briarpatch magazines. The Blue Road is her first graphic novel.
Recommended Age, Grade, and Reading Levels
- Age:
- 12 to 18
- Grade:
- 7 to 12
Editorial Reviews
The prose harvested from Wayde Compton's short story for this graphic-novel adaptation only emphasizes the creativity of the plot in his heroine's journey to the Northern Kingdom, a pointed immigration allegory. But it's April dela Noche Milne's vibrant illustrations - pools of saturated colours that contrast with squiggles of energetic line work - that give the story new life. -Quill and Quire (A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR)
With a tone that recalls classic fantasy stories, and some clever choices in symbolism, The Blue Road seems like a must-read for younger people as well as adults. -The Comics Beat
