Grampa and Julie: Shark Hunters

Grampa and Julie: Shark Hunters

written and illustrated by Jef Czekaj. 2004. Somerville, Massachusetts: Czekaj Press. (189183052X). 

Media: pen and ink, digitally colored

Author/Illustrator Website: http://www.czekaj.com/

Awards and Honors: none

Annotation:

The misadventures of Grampa and Julie, who are on the hunt to find Stephen, the biggest shark in the world.

Personal Reaction:

     While children will probably be left in stitches, adults will likely scratch their heads at the misadventures of Grampa and Julie, a dynamic duo on a quest to find Stephen, the biggest shark in the world. Grampa and Julie: Shark Hunters  compiles three years of comic strips that were published in Nickelodeon Magazine. It's a bizarre little graphic novel starring a rapping chicken and squirrel, a gang of hungry monkeys, an all-knowing Snow Queen, and a pair of Abominable Snowmen, among other characters. Julie plays the straight man to Grampa, an absent-minded ichthyologist and something of a nutty professor. The story twists and turns unpredictably, taking them from the middle of the ocean, to outer space, to the North Pole. While I got dizzy from trying to keep up with the plot twists, kids will find the book, with its silly illustrations and offbeat humor, irresistible.