Alison Dare: The Double Blog Dare Tour

Welcome to Day 6 of Tundra Books’ Double Blog Dare Tour for J. Torres’ and J. Bone’s super-entertaining graphic novels, featuring the sassy and fearless tween adventuress, Alison Dare. Bring on the daring! Bring on the masked superhero and the evil baron and the lost treasure! First, here’s a bit on the author and illustrator dream team.

J. Torres is a Shuster Award-winning, Eisner Award-nominated writer whose credits include adaptations of Disney/Pixar’s WALL-E and CTV’s Degrassi: The Next Generation, the comic book series Teen Titans Go and Wonder Girl for DC Comics, as well as the graphic novels Lola: A Ghost Story and the YALSA-listed Days Like This for Oni Press. He has also written for children’s magazines, books, and television. The author lives just outside of Toronto, Ontario.

J. Bone is an Eisner Award-nominated illustrator of several critically acclaimed comic books and graphic novels, including Spiderman: Tangled Web, Batman / The Spirit, and Paul Dini’s Mutant, Texas. J. Bone lives in Toronto, Ontario.

12-year-old Alison has been described as Indiana Jones meets Lara Croft, which basically means that readers are in for a wild ride, packed with a lot of humor and action. Alison is the daughter of a world-renowned archaeologist and the masked superhero The Blue Scarab, so it’s no surprise that she finds rule-breaking and a craving for dangerous situations come naturally. In each of the books, you’ll find several short adventures as Alison and her best friends face villains and save the day, making it all look as easy as their math homework.

Alison Dare was nominated for an Eisner Award in the Best Title for a Younger Audience category, and I can see why. The books make a neat package, with fast-moving story-lines that will have you turning the pages and laughing too. They are a tad tongue-in-cheek, almost poking fun at the adventure-genre, which adds an interesting layer. The graphics are bold and not overdone, quite understated I think. I like that Alison has a wild imagination, and she’s fearless. It’s different to read an action graphic novel with a girl at the centre. At the same time, the book will certainly appeal to boy readers as well, what with the evil baron and the ninjas. I know that there will be many Alison fans when I surrender these titles to my gang of bookworms at school. They are speedy reads, perfect for summer reading in between swims.

Tundra is running a fun/funny contest in connection with the tour. All you need to do is take a photo of Alison in your area and then send it to Tundra to be entered to win an Alison Dare prize pack. Instructions for all of that can be found here.

I snapped Alison in action in Riverdale. Here she is, proving her awesomeness:

Alison Dare and the Globe Basil of Doom

Alison Dare and the Solar-Powered Flower of Destiny

She is remarkable, yes?

You can continue to the other stops on the tour for today, and for all the rest of the tour days, by clicking here for the full schedule.

Thank your to Tundra for supplying review copies, and for inviting me to be a tour stop.

Both Alison Dare books are published by Tundra Books.