Blog Tour: THE WEIRN BOOKS vol. 2 by Svetlana Chmakova (w/ #giveaway)!
Welcome to Book-Keeping and my stop on the blog tour for The Weirn Books, vol. 2: The Ghost and the Stolen Dragon by Svetlana Chmakova! First, I would like to apologize profusely to the author, publisher, and Publicity Pros(e) for my delay; I was supposed to post on Monday, but I've had a terrible cold or some type of crud that just knocked me on my butt! However, I'm starting to feel better, and I'm glad to finally be able to share these wonderful middle grade graphic novels with you. I've got all the information on the book and author/illustrator, a Q&A with Svetlana, my brief review, and a giveaway we'd love for you to enter!
About the Book
title: The Weirn Books, vol. 2: The Ghost and the Stolen Dragon author/illustrator: Svetlana Chmakova publisher: JY (an imprint of Yen Press, LLC) release date: 15 October 2024
In the Night Realm, shifters, vampires, weirns (a particular kind of witch), and other night things passing for human may prowl the streets, but school is still in sessionâand you still have to do your homework! In The Weirn Books, Vol. 1: Be Wary of the Silent Woods (released June 2020), Ailis and Naâya are pretty average students, but when a shadow starts looming and a classmate gets all weird, theyâre the first to notice. It gets personal, though, when Naâyaâs little brother Dâesh disappears. To get him back, she has no choice but to confront the secrets of the forbidden mansion in the Silent Woods! Just in time for Halloween, The Weirn Books, Vol. 2: The Ghost and the Stolen Dragon (released October 15, 2024) takes readers back to Chmakovaâs supernatural world full of magic, adventure, and⊠dragons! After her terrible adventures in the Silent Woods, Naâyaâs world seems to have returned to normal⊠that is, except for the nightmares that keep haunting her. What she needs is the power to protect everyone, and she has the perfect solutionâsheâll turn into a dragon, once and for all! With help from Ailis and Jasper, everything seems to be going according to plan. But whatâs that dark shadow slithering around the spell-casting range?
Praise for Svetlana Chmakova: "Chmakova maintains her signature anime-influenced style, as seen in the âBerrybrook Middle Schoolâ series, and adds a touch of whimsy through visual worldbuilding around the eerie, desolate woods⊠VERDICT Relationships take center stage in this sweet, not-too-scary coming-of-age story that feels like a young read-alike to Buffy the Vampire Slayer." âSchool Library Journal (The Weirn Books, Vol. 1: Be Wary of the Silent Woods) âClassic manga visuals enrich Chmakovaâs charming, full-color art: sweeping magic amid serene concentration, shadows accentuating fear-inspiring retorts from authority figures, and facial contortions add humor to life-and-death stakes⊠Chmakova smartly keeps the focus on family, friendship, and the relatable struggles of fitting in.â âPublishers Weekly (The Weirn Books, Vol. 1: Be Wary of the Silent Woods)
Add to Goodreads: The Weirn Books, vol. 2: The Ghost and the Stolen Dragon Purchase the Book: Amazon | Bookshop
Q&A with the Author
Q: What first inspired you to create the Nightschool and the world of the Night Realm?
A: As a teen, when I first found out that urban supernatural fantasy/horror was a thing and an entire genre, I immediately fell in love with it. The concept of the magical living alongside the ordinary in our everyday world, staying hidden just out of the corner of the mortal eye was so full of possibility, to my young teen mind, I immediately started drawing piles and piles of unfinished comics pages filled with countless variations on that theme. Powerful high schooler witches fighting in the school yard by summoning snowstorms, werewolves being bored in science class, supernatural creatures that just barely pass for human lurking about their research needs in the local library isles⊠Any real life location I would be in, I mentally turned it up a notch by imagining what otherworldly things could be hanging out on the periphery of our reality there. I think the kernel for the Nightschool and The Weirn Books specifically was my high school creative writing class independent study projectâI informed my teacher that I was going to create a supernatural 24-page comic (never having done one before, mind you), and I actually did manage to write and draw about 10 pages of it! It was a story about a small town with a frozen river running through it, where most people were already asleep for the winter but a witch girl and her werewolf roomie were out and about getting coffee and renting movies to watch from the corner video store. I believe there was also a surly guy sorcerer who was making golems out of snow by placing bits of living heartsâ energy into it. Itâs fuzzy, but I remember struggling to draw a scene where he was ripping up the thick ice of the river with his magic, exposing the dark rushing water underneathâit looked really cool in my head, but I just wasnât at a skill level yet to draw it how I wanted it to look.Â
Q: If you were a creature of the Night Realm, what kind would you like to be and why?
A: Oh, I would want to be a weirn, definitely. I could blend seamlessly into both the Night Realm and the human world, it would be such an amazing freedom of movement to have. AND Iâd get an astral friend for life and get to do magic!
About the Author
Svetlana Chmakova was born and raised in Russia until the age of 16, when her family emigrated to Canada. She is an internationally published, award-winning author and illustrator, with more than 10 published books and her work translated into over 13 languages. Svetlana has drawn and written for animation, how-to-draw books, toy designs, and most of all, comics and manga. Her full-length manga/comics series include the fan-favorite romantic comedy Dramacon, the award-winning urban fantasy Nightschool: The Weirn Books, and the hit Berrybrook Middle School series, as well as the manga adaptation of the New York Times bestselling Witch & Wizard by James Patterson. She graduated from Sheridan College with a three-year Classical Animation Diploma, and was a Master Comics Artist-in-Residence at Atlantic Center for The Arts.
Connect with Svetlana: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
My 5-Star Review
It's been a long time since I've read a middle grade graphic novel; my son is now 16 so sadly the time for reading aloud to him has passed! So I was excited when Casey at Publicity Pros(e) reached out to me about this tour. I knew Svetlana Chmakova's name from the six years I volunteered at the library at my son's elementary school; her books were very popular with the kids who loved graphic novels! I was thrilled to finally read one of her series, and this sweetly spooky series is simply delightful. There's just enough eerieness for those MG readers who delight in spooky reads, with plenty of sweetness for the rest. Relationships are paramount here, both family and friends, and the kids must work together (with a little help from the adults) to escape danger. There's a diverse cast of characters, which I think is wonderful for young readers. And the illustrations are just magical; you can almost read the story without the words, so good is the art at exposition.
I highly recommend this sweet and spooky series for any fan of middle grade graphic novels, no matter their age!
Rating: 5 stars!
**Disclosure: I received copies of the books for purposes of this blog tour. This review and rating reflect my honest opinions of the books.
About the Giveaway
Five (5) winners will receive a paperback set of The Weirn Books, Vol. 1: Be Wary of the Silent Woods and The Weirn Books, Vol. 2: The Ghost and the Stolen Dragon!
US only
Ends November 10, 2024 at 11:59pm ET
Enter to Win via Rafflecopter!