Lieberman,
Aj, & Darren Rawlings. The Silver Six. Scholastic/Graphix 2013 188p ISBN 978-0-545-37098-1 elem/ms VG-BN Graphic novel
Six children are inadvertently thrown
together in a futuristic orphanage. They
figure out their connection and escape Earth to go to a moon, where their parents were working on a
secret mission to discover a new fuel to power Earth before they were killed. Finally, here is a graphic novel that has a plot that is perfect for the upper-elementary/middle-school reader –- it has young,
heroic characters that are somewhat believable and illustrations that are not
so jumbled with action that we cannot figure out what is happening. In the exposition, the reader learns that the sinister owner of
a company that produces hydro-2 blows up a spaceship full of scientists who may
have a solution to the fuel problem that has ruined Earth. Hydro-2 is so
difficult to produce that Hayden Craven killed to gain the secrets carried by
the scientists. In a flash forward, we
meet the orphan Phoebe and her robot Max.
Both try to stay under the radar of child protective services, who want to put Phoebe into
an orphanage. Unfortunately, Phoebe is
caught and sent to a place that is
reminiscent of the type of orphanage where Dickens’s Oliver resided back
in the 1800’s. Phoebe meets several
other children, forms a type of family with them, and ironically, they find out
that they are all connected by a legacy in the form of a piece of parchment paper
with a microchip embedded inside.
And voila, the team comes together as the Silversix. They manage to escape to the moon where the
action becomes even more dangerous as Craven sends an attack probe their way to
try to find out the secret of the new fuel. Young readers
will enjoy the resourcefulness of the Silversix as they combat Craven. They
will love the graphics, and last, but not least, they will undoubtedly inspire author AJ
Lieberman to write more books.
Orphans-Graphic
novels, Science fiction-Graphic novels
--Martha Squaresky
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