Voice of Youth Advocates

After Blue's father dies, the bully Hopper ratchets up his persecution. Blue vents his feelings through a graphic novel about a wild boy living in the local woods: "If anybody ever seen him he chased them and cort them and killed them and ate them and chucked their bones down an aynshent pit shaft." As Blue's story progresses, he first writes in Hopper-"he wud taste . . . horibil"-and then himself. Seeing the difference between the boys, the Savage-and Blue-begin to improve. Anyone expecting the Savage to remain a simple cathartic representation of Blue's emotions, however, does not know Almond. When Blue writes the Savage beating up Hopper, and Hopper shows up with a black eye, the line between reality and story blurs. Blue knows he must seek out the Savage's cave to find the truth-and the end of the story. In vintage Almond style, this short, half-graphic novel leaves readers unsure where the Savage's story ends and Blue's begins. It feels much like Kit's Wilderness (Delacorte, 2000/VOYA April 2000), although its brevity renders it somewhat less powerful. Blue is a realistic, appealing protagonist, though, and in penning Blue's story of the Savage, the author ably captures the bloodthirsty writing style (and spelling) of middle school boys. The Savage's tale is enhanced by McKean's grotesquely distorted figures, painted in bold black brush strokes on atmospheric shadings of blue and green. Recommend this one to fans of Almond, ambiguity, and the often blurred line between reality and illusion.-Rebecca C. Moore.

ALA Booklist (Mon Sep 01 00:00:00 CDT 2008)

A story-within-the-story that explores the means of handling grief forms the thrust of this compact book. After Blue Baker's father dies, his school counselor tries to get him to write down and explore his feelings. "I did it for a while, but it just seemed stupid." Instead, he secretly starts writing and drawing a story about a feral boy living alone in the woods. Blue's story ich slashes into the narrative, the moody and ragged artwork a mirror for Blue's inner turmoil interspersed with his struggle to cope with the loss of his father, run-ins with a bully, and difficulty reaching out to his mother and younger sister. The savage in his story is a violent, languageless creature who chases down, kills, and eats people who get too close. The line separating Blue and his imaginary savage becomes increasingly blurred, each bleeding into the other's world, leading to an inevitable, though earned, catharsis. Avoiding sentiment, this illuminating book captures the staggering power of raw emotions on young minds, and demonstrates the ways expression can help transform and temper them.

Kirkus Reviews

Fantasy and reality mix in the psychodrama of a fictional feral child who steps out of his story. Grieving over his father's death, young Blue begins writing privately about a boy who lives in the local wood on raw game and scavenged garbage: "If anybody ever seen him he chased them and cort them and killed them and ate them and chucked their bones down an aynshent pit shaft. He was savage. He was truly wild." Narrating in a mix of prose passages and slashing, two-color sequential panels depicting a bony, shirtless, knife-wielding lad, Blue describes how, after he puts himself, his little sister and a local bully into his tale, he finds tangible evidence that the wild boy has visited all three as they slept. As a grimacing, gesticulating embodiment of raw emotion in McKean's pictures, the wild boy makes a visible and effectively unsettling stand-in for Blue's own emotional turmoil—and indeed, in the climax the alter egos come together for a healing encounter. The art ramps up the intensity of this provocative outing. (Fantasy. 11 & up)

Horn Book (Wed Apr 01 00:00:00 CDT 2009)

After his father's death, Blue Baker writes a story about a savage kid. The line between fantasy and reality blurs when the savage visits a bully who has been hounding Blue. This illustrated novella, a graphic novel within a novel, will satisfy Almond's fans and newcomers alike. McKean's illustrations--ink and watercolor in black, blues, and greens--add an appropriately eerie touch.

School Library Journal (Mon Dec 01 00:00:00 CST 2008)

Gr 5-9 Blue is scrawny and nice. He is harassed by a big, dumb, smoking boy named Hopper. Blue's father died suddenly when he was younger. To cope, he wrote a comic book about a feral boy who gets to express his anger and loneliness through violent revenge, something Blue can't or won't do. Then parts of the story merge with real life. The characters' conversations and relationships are believable. The story is so thin, though, that there's little chance to care about the players. McKean's tonal watercolor panels, which illustrate roughly half of the pages, are full of palpable ragegorgeous, frightening, and highly effective images. They set an ornery, mysterious mood that Almond's lackluster story never quite matches. Though the prose is clear and simple, the pace, in an attempt to build mystery, is too methodical for so obvious an allegory. The phonetic spelling in Blue's comic indicates a child much younger than the novel's somewhat confusing chronology indicates. Johanna Lewis, New York Public Library