(Review is with book 2: The Dream Thief.) ( )

A very cute first story in a series of graphic novels. The story centers around a young girl and her brother. The art is quite well done and the plot is strong. I found the book to be an entertaining and fun read. Highly recommended for kids who like adventure series with strong female characters. Also, if you start reading this one, you might one to pick up the rest, because the books ends with quite a cliffhanger. ( )

Five years ago, little Matt Jameson got on a ride in a street fair and disappeared without a trace. His older sister Kate Jameson and mother Frances are frequently at odds with each other ever since.

Kate is now 14, your average rebellious teenager with a taste for heavy metal and being difficult with her deeply-hurting mother.

One day, their neighbour Mrs Vaughn cornered Kate and told her she knew where Matt is. He has been taken into Abadazad, a fantasy land known to the "real world" as the setting of a popular children's book series. This series was Matt and Kate's absolute favourite before he vanished.

How does Mrs Vaughn know all this? Kate originally thought she was a huge fan herself, but it turned out that her old neighbour was the little girl who travelled into Abadazad in the stories.

How could any of this be possible? The "Little Martha" of the stories was a red-haired, green-eyed girl... not a African-American. And Abadazad is just a story, not a real land you can go to.

Mrs Vaughn explained that in her time, the general public won't take kindly to a little "Negro girl" being the heroine of a book. Franklin O. Davis, the writer she worked with, changed her into Caucasian girl and applied some artistic liberty to the stories that Mrs Vaughn supplied him.

Kate decided that Mrs Vaughn was absolutely nuts, and left. But certain events occured after, giving Kate no choice but to believe and take the journey into Abadazad to find Matt.

"The Road to Inconceivable" serves as an introduction (ours and Kate's) to Abadazad. She is reunited with Mrs Vaughn, in the form of Little Martha, and meets Queen Ija, ruler of Inconceivable. Kate learns the difference between the real Abadazad and Davis's version.

A great deal of this book also established Kate's background. She is not anybody's idea of a dream child. Kate represents that difficult age where nobody "understands" her and she is frequently in trouble at school.

It's only in the second book, "The Dream Thief", where get over Kate's astonishment in finding herself in storybook land, and we finally get into the business of her finding Matt.

The tale starts with an attack on the Queen's castle. Apparently, whoever took Matt realises that Kate will soon be his problem.

Upset that Queen Ija is hesitant on letting her start her search, Kate runs away with Master Wix, a boy made of candlewax and minor character who happens to be Matt's favourite in the book.

We see more of The Lanky Man, our six-armed man villian, and discover his objectives for taking Matt prisoner.

I spotted these books in one of our local book stores and thought they looked interesting. It is a hybrid of journal-style storytelling and a graphic novel. I got one at first because it isn't exactly cheap, then found myself back first thing the next morning for the second book.

Abadazad originally was a comic. When their publisher closed shop, Disney bought the series over. Abadazad is reborn as a high quality and beautifully-illustrated children's book.

Kate's narration and the comic parts of the book flow smoothly in and out of each other. It's a good example of how the two medium can complement each other.

Abadazad is "the Place where sorrow has no home, where time has no meaning, where joy lives forever". The catch phrase has a high level of cheese for those of us above 15, but at least they don't throw that at you before they have you deep in the story.

With hints of Wizard of Oz and Narnia, Abadazad contain elements that I love in fantasy - the transplanting of an everyday person from "real life", into a whimsical fantasy world.

Hold on tight. The journey is only beginning.

(2006)