La casa de la Dentista…part 1: My Review
When Jim Wooldridge (Sr. Wooly) asked me to review his new graphic novel, I JUMPED at the chance!! You can’t blame me for not resisting a sneak peek of what he calls “…the best story I’ve ever created in any medium. “, right? So I was over the moon when the book landed in my mailbox.
La casa de la Dentista
But does it hold up to the hype? Is it really that good?
Yeah. It is.
A young girl has nightmares about her…la Dentista. And at school the folklore continues as the world remembers the incident…so long ago…well, you’ll just have to read about that part. I was going to tell you more, but then I got a phone call…
But this book really is good. The art is AMAZING. I couldn’t wait to read the whole book. I was so impatient, I decided we were going to have a little extra FVR time in class, just so I could read!
Best excuse for FVR…Profe wants to read!
The story has humor, and twists at every point. Just when you think you have it figured out, something new happens that you didn’t expect!
But is it scary?!?
Well, it’s suspenseful. And while to describe the plot it is more intense and psychologically mindblowing than the original video (on the surface, “A girl doesn’t want to go to the dentist because the dentist is a kind of spider-like sadistic creature with no teeth.” doesn’t sound like much), it feels less scary to me. The music and sound effects of the video make it a much more bothersome experience in my opinion than the graphic novel. The action in the graphic novel, does build to a much more suspenseful climax, and doesn’t give a lot of relief from that tension. But the nice thing about a book is that you can control how quickly you get into and through that tension. You can put the book down, or skip past a scary image by turning the page. While I wouldn’t recommend it to younger elementary classes, my estimation is that this would be fine for use in middle school and older. And some elementary kids will also LOVE this. As with anything, you need to know your kids, and know if this is right for them.
But should we really believe you? Didn’t you just do this for the free copy?
No…okay, yeah…but I love and respect you all too much to lie to you about this. I promise, I’m already plotting how I’m going to use this with my students when it is available. And to put more behind my review, I’ve asked students to review it for me also. So stay tuned for part 2 when I share with you what my students say about this book…I’m showing it to level 1 and level 5!!
To be continued…
[…] day! So, I watched as Allison Weinhold, Cynthia Hitz, Maris Hawkins, Arianne Dowd, Martina Bex, Kelly Ferguson, Kara Jacobs, and Dustin Williamson ALL posted their reviews. And I tried not to read them, just […]