Changing Moon: Book 1

Nola lives a seaside town that is the epitome of perfection. Too bad it's the most boring thing ever. When the school librarian has an accident, Nola gets sucked in b/c she is sure the two new kids Damiano and Ines have something to do with it. She tries to follow them around but ends up making friends with them. She is still very aware that they are hiding a secret though because there is waaay more to the two of them then meets the eye.

Nola is adorable but her age was a little tough to figure out. Some illustrations and actions make her come across as very young and others put her straight in the teenager camp. I loved her best friend Pumpkin and I'm hoping she will play a bigger part in future stories. There were definitely a lot of unanswered questions in this volume and the end was teeny bit cliff hangery.

I love the art style. Alta Donna is just as beautiful as it's supposed to be. The bright colors and anime happy drawing style definitely serve as a reminder about how idyllic the setting is and keep the mystery from becoming to heavy handed. How Nola is drawn fits her personality perfectly.

12-year-old Nola spends her days trying to stay awake in school, hanging with her best friend Pumpkin, and looking for a little attention from her workaholic mother. Nothing happens in the outwardly perfect town of Alta Donna, and Nola is bored senseless... until Damiano and his sister Ines move to town and strange things start happening. The school librarian has a mysterious accident, Ines seems to be able to bend people to her will, rain clouds move in on previously blue skies, and two strange creatures seem to be trying to kidnap Damiano and Ines. While beautiful artwork will draw in tween anime fans, the story line and dialog are choppy, and the purpose of this first installment seems to be only to set the stage for forthcoming installments. If volumes 2 and 3, which have been published, can get the story moving a little more quickly and evenly, this is a promising series.

Reason for Reading: This is a Cybils '10 nominee and required reading for me as a graphic novels panelist.Nola is a typical middle schooler, not popular, a daydreamer, who is consistently late for school. She's a latch key kid who lives with her mom, who is career driven and hardly ever at home with Nola; while her dad is busy with a new family and brings her gifts to make up for never seeing her. Nola's town, Alta Donna, is a slow boring place where nothing happens and Nola's life is mostly spent alone when not with her best friend, two years older than her and an outcast herself. But two new kids come to school and Nola picks up right away that something is not quite right about them. Then when she hears the brother and sister mysteriously arguing in the hall one day she determines to find out what it is that makes Damiano so agile and such a good baseball player and why Ines is able to charm anyone into getting anything she wants.It's been a few days now since I've read this and it is lingering in my mind. My enjoyment of it is more the longer I think of it. This book is the first in a trilogy with it's purpose obviously a set up for the rest of the series whose plot barely gets off the ground here in Book 1. Instead the characters are all introduced and well portrayed; Nola is fully developed and a real, flawed character that the reader cares for. All the plot points are put in motion in this book, and near the end the science fiction theme is put into play, we get some reveals and the book ends with the certainty that things will never be boring for Nola again. Book 2 in the series is anxiously on my mind. All 3 books have been published.The art is decidedly French and yet also interestingly, manga. I've read French comics before but this is the first French manga I've come across. There are plenty of typical manga elements used including little chibi scenes and yet there are distinct French elements combined which makes for an interesting graphic and artistic style which is very pleasing and appealed to me on an aesthetic level that normal Japanese manga does not.Sept 10, 2011 - I am re-reading this, not quite a year since my first read and above review. My purpose in re-reading is that I am finally going to read the other two books in the trilogy and I read this again to refresh my memory and read all 3 books together. I think I probably enjoyed this even more the second time around as I probably would have given it a rating of 5 this time instead of the 4 from last time.

The story of a girl who meets two new kids in school, a brother and sister. At the end of the book, we discover that they may not be what they seem to be.

The story of a girl who meets two new kids in school, a brother and sister. At the end of the book, we discover that they may not be what they seem to be.