Liō: Making Friends

Gr 4–8—These mostly wordless comics contain the latest adventures of Tatulli's cute-but-creepy protagonist, Liō. The collection is filled with dark humor and lots of weird and outlandish characters. While Liō appears to be an ordinary boy in an ordinary world, he interacts on a regular basis with a variety of monsters, a giant squid, aliens, zombies, ghosts, witches, spiders, and a giant snake. He sleeps with a vampire bunny doll. The humor echoes that of other famous comic strips like Calvin and Hobbes or Monty, and even the wordless wit of Sergio Aragones from the margins of MAD Magazine. Some of the jokes might be too dark for younger children or may fly over their heads. Then again, references to grown-up things such as riding a bomb Dr. Strangelove-style might be aimed at any parents who are reading this book with their children. The artwork alternates between black and white and brightly colored cartoons, and Tatulli (like Bill Watterson before him) skillfully evokes a mix of cuteness and gruesomeness in his work. This book will probably be most appreciated by readers who are already fans of Liō, but it might also serve as an introduction to dark-humor fans.—Andrea Lipinski, New York Public Library