Review Detail

Eight different author/illustrators bring to life (and panel) eight different stories told via sequential art, with the uniting theme of one of the more dreaded of school time punishments: Detention.
The message content ranges from meaningful to humorous to benign. Coming in at 160 pages, this collection varies widely in art style and approach, and may appeal best to young readers who are already familiar with one or more of the authors.
Short stories include:

*The Breakfast Bunch In… Detention Disaster tells the tale of three kids who wind up in detention after eavesdropping on a teacher who they’re convinced is planning to use bioengineered rats to rob their city. It also has the bonus of a one-page step-by-step guide to drawing one of it’s characters.

*Cheating Death W/ Sisyphus cunningly compares detention to the famed Greek myth (in which the gods condemned a king by the name to forever push a boulder up a mountain, only to watch it roll down again.)

*Worse Than Detention is a twisting and amusing story about community service gone wrong—and right. It also features some of the highest levels of artistic detail within this collection.

*Milo’s Journey is a sweeping-yet-condensed daydream of epic proportions, presenting as a keenly stylized world-within-a-world fantasy.

*Too Nice! Is a comedy of errors, as a boy-crazy “nice girl” tries everything she can think of to land herself in detention, all in the hopes of winning the notice of a wannabe rocker.

*Cyclopean Kid: Detention Is Forever tell the tale of a cyclops who nods off in monster school, and who’s teacher accidentally leaves him in detention longer than she meant to.

*Think About What You’ve Done! introduces readers to a day-dreaming doodler, and the not-so-invisible friend who makes his detention time more bearable with its mischievous antics.

*Squish: Leave No Cell Behind! is the story of a single-cell organism who winds up in trouble after his favorite comic book hero inspires him to commit a good deed. The last page includes a guide on drawing the main character.

All in all, this graphic book is an engaging medium that effectively conveys a wide range of characters, plotlines, humor, and emotion; while also encouraging creativity. A solid pick for any hesitant young reader.