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“Ms. McCullough, is this a nerd book?” she asks, holding up Malice, a fire engine red book with a 3-D cover.
“What’s that mean?”
“Well, look at it,” she says, pointing to the cover with a lanky skeleton creature in a trench coat and fedora.
“Do you mean do I think you are going to like it? Cause, it looks to me like it must be a pretty special book for them to put such a special cover on it.”
Walking to a nearby table at the front of library, I ask, “What do you do when you’re picking out a book? What do you look for?” As she holds up the book and flips from the 3-D front cover to the back, I mention that I also thumb through some pages inside the book and I point out the striking, color photographs in the center of my current book, the bestselling nonfiction, Enrique’s Journey. In Malice, we quickly notice the alternating sections of sentence-and-paragraph narrative and stark, black-and-white graphic novel parts. “Hmm, that could be kinda cool,” I say in reference to the alternating format.
“It still looks nerdy…”.
“Well, it just might not be for you.” And, the conversation ends with “Haven’t you heard, ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover’,” which, this time, is fitting and not a cliché.
In the heat of that teachable moment, I hope I said the right thing, hope I planted a seed to giving different books a try, and not, inadvertently or subconsciously, judging those who choose books we wouldn’t. A book is magical because it can spark a fire when the right reader finds it.
Moreover, I have looked into Malice a bit more and found that it is a kin to Alice in Wonderland and Coraline. The main characters of Malice struggle to emerge from a subworld they thought would bring them something better than their real life. Malice may not be for everyone, but its structure, theme, and unique style give it the right to be seen a good book.
More about Chris Wooding's Malice
Everyone’s heard the rumors. Call on Tall Jake and he’ll take you to Malice, a world that exists inside a terrifying comic book. A place most kids never leave.
Seth and Kady think it’s all a silly myth. But then their friend disappears, and suddenly the rumors don’t seem so silly anymore…