I am thrilled to be hosting a spot
on the GHOSTER HEIGHTS by Corey Landsell, Kelly
Mellings, & Lisa Larose Blog Tour hosted by Rockstar Book Tours. Check out
my post and make sure to enter the giveaway!
Author: Corey Landsell, Kelly Mellings, Lisa Larose, Becca Carey, Rebecca Taylor (Editor)
Release Date: September 27, 2022
Publisher: Wonderbound
Formats: Paperback, eBook
Pages: 208
Find it: Goodreads, Amazon, Kindle, B&N, iBooks, Kobo, TBD, Bookshop.org
A haunting and hopeful Middle Grade graphic novel about a girl, ghosts, and grief. For fans of Sheets, Small Spaces, and Ghosts.
WELCOME TO THE NEIGHBOOHOOD!
Eight-year-old Ona has lost just about everything: her home, her possessions,
her mother, and almost her life. When she and her father move into her Baba’s
apartment complex after these traumatic events, they had hoped for a clean
start. But a mysterious specter follows her, and Ona befriends the ghost she
discovers haunting the boiler room. When her new friendship starts allowing her
to see other ghosts—the ghosts who haunt the other residents of her
building—she decides to use her ability to help her new neighbors face
their troubles and free themselves from their specters. In doing so, however,
Ona must eventually come face to face with a much darker foe—her own
trauma and grief. The earnestness of Judy Bloom meets the raw emotion
of I Kill Giants in this beautifully hopeful story of
childhood tragedy.
An original graphic novel for Middle Grade readers about grief, loss, and the
ghosts that haunt us all.
For fans of Brenna Thummler’s Sheets and Delicates.
List your favorite graphic novels or comics from when you were a child and talk about how you see them as an adult.
Corey - My earliest memory related to comics is reading the Sunday cartoons in my grandparents’ newspaper. I can’t recall specifically any that stood out to me. But I always wanted to read them. After that it was Peanuts, Asterix and Obelix, and The Adventures of Tintin. I recall sitting in the library at my elementary school just digging into those. Over and over. Then it was Calvin and Hobbes. LOVE.
In my teen years, I was heavily into Marvel comics. Never really got into DC. Not sure why. But I fell in love with titles like the Amazing Spiderman, X-Men, X-Factor…etc. For a time, in my later teens, I really chewed into Sleepwalker, for a time, and fell in love with Akira. First the film and then the comics.
As an adult, I think I see a wide range of interest in my consumption of comics. Some manga, some marvel, some Dark Horse, some Sunday paper funnies. I think that comics were one of the ways I coped with the many challenges of growing up. I could see myself through the characters and the worlds. The fantastic spaces and characters would allow me to process some personal feelings at arm’s length and, at times, just allow me an escape hatch from the struggles of life.
Kelly - My favorite comics as a child were superhero comics, but I loved Calvin and Hobbes and Far Side and Peanuts. When I was young, there wasn’t much outside of superheroes in north America. I knew certain characters spoke to me. As an adult, I can see that it was the writers and artists that worked on those characters and brought them to life that really spoke to me, they were the ones that brought those characters to life.
With two daughters I’ve fallen in love with the huge diversity of amazing kids graphic novels out there and am so proud to add Ghoster Heights to that space.
List your favorite graphic novels this year and why you like them.
Corey - Sadly, I don’t have as much time to dig into books as I used to. I recently dug into some old Eastman and Laird Turtles stuff and really enjoyed that as well as Bone and Usagi Yojimbo. Regarding “new” graphic novels, I truly loved The Unfinished Corner by Dani Colman & Rachel Petrovicz. It struck me on a few levels. It was a wonderful window into Jewish culture. It challenged me in terms of thinking about writing about my own faith tradition and what that would look like, and I just really loved the story. A truly fantastic and reflective story of self-discovery that I feel anyone could relate to. I loved the cast and the amazing settings throughout this book.
Kelly - I love Verse from Wonderbound, I think Sam Beck is an amazing new voice in fantasy. It’s from last year, but Trung Le Nguyen’s Magic Fish is stunning…beautiful art a sort of blend of Art
Nuevo and Manga and a wonderful mix of fairytale and biography. I’m excited about Kate Beaton’s Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands, she is an amazing storyteller, with some of the best comedic timing I’ve ever read. I loved the art in Mamo by Sas Milledge, and a Frog in the Fall by Linnea Sterte is absolutely charming.
Lisa - I have gotten really into reading comics on webtoons lately. Some of my favorites that I am currently reading are The Kiss Bet by Ingrid Ochoa (the style/ expressions are so great and has definitely influenced my own work) and Your Smile is Trap by Aengo.
What are your favorite prose books – and why do you like them?
Corey - This could get long. How much time do you have? I’ll keep it brief by saying this, I mostly listen to books these days. I don’t have the time to sit and read but I do drive, mow my lawn and paint, these are excellent times for me to consume content through audio books. Right now, I am on my third listen through of the Stormlight Archives books 1-4 by Brandon Sanderson. I’m a big Sanderson fan. So pretty much anything Cosmere related or adjacent…I’m in. I listened to the Silmarillion for the first time this year as well. Before getting back into the Stormlight Archives I was in the middle of my third listen through of the Wheel of Time. If put task, I would have to say my favorite prose books are anything in those areas. Stormlight Archives, Lord of the Rings and Wheel of Time. As you can see, I am a bit of a fantasy nerd. I’ve concluded that the reason I love the fantasy genre is that I believe these stories all carry nuggets of truth. I find that these stories, due to the good vs. evil themes that you find throughout them, scratch the surface of universal truths that I believe the human experience hungers for. They pull from themes of redemption, heroism, self-discovery, fighting evil, both within and without and reflect the best and worst of our nature and the potential that lies outside of our human capacities.
But they allow us to explore these themes in worlds and ways that keep the hard aspects of those questions just at the surface. This allows us to really explore and look at those themes and ourselves in a safe way. I think this is why I love genre books in general and why I have gravitated to working on books like Ghoster Heights.
Kelly - The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway for its sparse language and straightforward honesty. Jerusalem by Alan Moore for its poetic prose and ambitious structure. And Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley holds a special place because it was one of my first genre books and my first experience of the source material being so much stronger than the movies.
Corey Lansdell is a multiple award-winning illustrator and animator.
He is a skilled communicator, expert storyteller and passionate collaborator.
Corey heads up a SCBWI illustrators group in Edmonton, Alberta.
Website | Twitter | Facebook
| Instagram | Goodreads | Amazon
Kelly Mellings is an award-winning art director, illustrator, and
designer. His work has appeared in comic books, TV commercials, magazines, apps, museum exhibits, and
video games. He is the co-writer of Ghoster Heights and illustrator
of the Canadian best-selling graphic novel, The Outside Circle. He lives in Edmonton, Alberta.
Twitter | Instagram | Goodreads
Lisa
LaRose is a pop
surrealist painter, illustrator, and comics artist in Vancouver, Canada. She is
best known for her paintings: Bizarre and Colourful artworks. She creates
lively and exciting colour palettes and is always making something a little
weird. Lisa loves middle-grade fiction (books, comics, cartoons, you name it)
and so she also moonlights as a middle-grade comics artist.
Website | Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | TikTok | Goodreads
(2) winners
will receive a finished copy of GHOSTER HEIGHTS - US Only.
Ends October 11th, midnight EST.
Tour Schedule:
Week One:
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9/12/2022 |
Review/IG Post |
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9/13/2022 |
Review/IG Post |
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9/14/2022 |
IG Review |
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9/15/2022 |
Guest Post/IG Post |
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9/16/2022 |
Guest Post |
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9/17/2022 |
IG Spotlight |
Week Two:
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9/18/2022 |
Guest Post |
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9/19/2022 |
Review/IG Post |
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9/20/2022 |
IG Spotlight |
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9/21/2022 |
Review/IG Post |
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9/22/2022 |
Guest Post |
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9/23/2022 |
Guest Post/IG Post |
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9/24/2022 |
Guest Post |
Week Three:
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9/25/2022 |
Review/IG Post |
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9/26/2022 |
Review |
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9/27/2022 |
IG Spotlight |
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9/28/2022 |
IG Review |
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9/29/2022 |
Review |
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9/30/2022 |
Review |
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10/1/2022 |
IG Review |
Week Four:
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10/2/2022 |
IG Review |
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10/3/2022 |
IG Review |
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10/4/2022 |
Review/IG Post |
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10/5/2022 |
Review/IG Post |
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10/6/2022 |
Review/IG Post |
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10/7/2022 |
Review/IG Post |
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