Haru: Book 1: Spring - by Joe Latham

Thenk you to NetGalley and Andrews McMeel Publishing for this ARC.

3 out of 5 Stars.
🌠🌠🌠

Story and Illustrations by artist Joe Latham.

This is a graphic novel about the characters 'Haru', a bird who dreams of flying, and their friend Yama, a boar, who are used to being on the outside. But when Yama finds a seed they are swept into a journey to save their world.

It's a seed, right? Esentially a seed of evil. Lmao.

First, I'd like to bring up the art. It's cute, but not terribly eye catching, which is one of the reasons I couldn't give this graphic novel a 4 or a 5 out of 5 like I usually would. I'm usually an easy win with graphic novels, but this honestly bored me. Cute, yes, but exciting and adventurious feeling? Nope. Just didn't take me there.

I feel bad, but I'm always Honest.

There was hardly any information at any time and they barely talked, considering one of them was supposed to be super talkative? The pig, right? Anyway. I made myself finish it, but felt no differently after.

Ivy in Bloom by Vanita Oelschlager 🌒🛁📱

Thank you to NetGalley and VanitaBooks, LLC for the ARC. 🌠🌠🌠
Three stars.

Yes, if you must know, I'm on a Oelschlager binge. I'd rather binge books than food, but now I'm thinking about a good cup of tea.

The illustrations for this were done by Kristin Blackwood. Love that last name, so dramatic sounding. It made me sigh.

The cover is so sweet, I love wild flowers and the font used it really creative, you know it's going to be poetry before you even read the word poetry.

... I'd almost wished that I'd had this book when I was a child, but the random religious ending that totally came out of nowhere took me off guard and reminded me of my grandparents whom don't speak to me because I don't go to church. I still respect religion. I just wouldn't read this over and over like I would with Vanita's other books. It's still a beautiful book of prose and the art is cute as heck.

I think this would make a great gift to a young christian girl. The art is totally worth it and the prose is good, I enjoyed it even despite the religious ending. I was just caught off guard I think.

This would be great for a sunday school library too! A+