The Master of Shadows (Elsewhere Chronicles)
This third graphic novel in the Elsewhere Chronicles completes the trilogy begun in The Shadow Door (2009), but also leaves things open for further installments. The four children continue their search for a way out of the strange world they’ve been transported to, fighting off the menacing shadow monsters with light guns and a handy camera while encountering all manner of peculiar flora and fauna. This other world is so tantalizingly imagined and gorgeously rendered that the not-really-an-ending is a huge bummer, leaving more questions percolating than answered. Kids will be left literally begging for more, and are likely to get it. Grades 4-7. --Ian Chipman