Madeline L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time: The Graphic Novel by Hope Larson

- are there any characters that you feel are similar to you?
- calvin.  i just feel that i had to say that.  i get the same feelings.  i feel things before they happen and after they happen.

- by the end, did you feel like most of the mysteries were answered, or were you still confused?
- only some of the mysteries were answered.  i still have questions about the black thing and about IT.

- speaking of IT - let's say for a moment that you were in the room with calvin, meg, charles wallace and mr. murry.  how would you resist IT?
- i would say some of my weekly memory verses and sing some of the junior choir songs that i learned.

- would you trust mrs whatsit, mrs who and mrs which if you met them today?
- yes.

- if they were staying in charlottetown, where would they be?
- the holiday inn.  they wouldn't even have to pay.  they could just tesser into a room and everybody would suspect that they had already paid.

- why do you think meg and calvin are falling in love?
- because i just think it was meant to be.  and i think mrs whatsit, mrs who and mrs which, since they are magical creatures, they just made it happen.

- dennys and sandy get left out of the whole adventure, seemingly because they do not have the special abilities that meg and charles wallace have.  is this fair?  would you have sent them?
- why were they even in the book if they didn't even go on any crazy adventure?????????????????????????????

- how do feel about the pictures?  is there anything you would have drawn differently?
- meg looks too young for her age.  and i think calvin should look more like me - just a teenage version of me.

- aunt beast thinks that vision, or the sense of sight, is very limiting.  do you agree?
- i do not agree.  i think vision is the most important sense of all.  why would there be figurines, decorations or anything without vision.  the world wouldn't be anything.  everything would be grey and dark with no colour at all.  you wouldn't even need colour.  why would you even have a pet?  if you don't have sight a pet is useless.

- pretend that i don't get the book at all.  describe for me the man with red eyes.  what is he?  why is he important to the plot?
- his function is helping you understand that IT is very powerful.  he is a zombie, basically, but he never died.  he just doesn't have a brain.

- the book makes a big deal out of a verse in the bible that talks about God using the foolish and the weak things in the world to defeat the wise and powerful.  does this happen in real life?
- yes.  it does.

- would you recommend this book to others?
- i would recommend it to everybody in the whole world who likes mysterious, magical, serious books.

- do you think you will eventually read the novel, without the pictures?
- probably not.  maybe when i am the kind of person that doesn't need any pictures anymore.

Oz [graphic novel series] by Eric Shanower and Skottie Young

Oz - Nomes from the Nome King's palace.

Cowardly Lion, Toto and Dorothy from Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Jim and Eureka in the land of the Mangaboos, from Dorothy and the Wizard.

We usually don't do interviews about shorter books or comics. But I felt we needed to make a special exception for the Oz comics. Why do you think that is?
- Because the Oz comics are adaptations of chapter books. Novels, actually. And they aren't called graphic novels for nothing. They are pretty long.
It takes us at least eight hours to read an Oz novel, but right around three hours to read a comic, even with all the extra discussion and explaining. Do you think we are somehow missing out?
- No, because I think we should read both of every one.
So far we've read The Wizard of Oz, Ozma of Oz and Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz. Which was your favourite?
- Ozma of Oz, the one with the Nome King. The pictures were particularly exciting - and the nomes were pretty cute. One of my favourite parts is when everyone has to guess what objects everyone got transformed into and they they guess wrong and they all get transformed. Then I loved how Billina the chicken was the hero.
I'm happy that Soleil is able to read graphic novels with us. She just doesn't have the attention span for chapter books.
- I like it too.
Next on our list is the The Road to Oz. Should we read the novel or the comic first?
- The comic.
The illustrator has made some bold choices. Which characters have surprised you, in a good way?
- Scarecrow. I love the Tin Woodman, but I wish he would have done him like in his first sketches - more robotic. I love the nomes. And Ozma.
Has the illustrator made any mistakes?
- Denfinitely with the Hammerheads. They should be bigger, with grass skirts instead of skin-clothes, have longer necks and more rectangular heads. They don't have arms!
How much do you think Oz can teach us about the real world?
- Two percent. I mean six percent. First of all, the characters had lots of courage and brains and heart before they got all that stuff from the Wizard. Like that kind of learning.
Pretend you are thinking of working together with a team to create a graphic novel version of something we've read. What is it?
- The Dog Who Wouldn't Be by Farley Mowat. Because it is one of the funniest things I've ever read.
Of the four main jobs (writer, illustrator, colorist, letterer), which would you pick?
- I'd take three of the jobs - illustrator, colorist, letterer. Somebody else can come up with the script.