Mortals & Monsters: Choose Your Own Comic Adventure: Nathan Hale, George O’Connor & Jason Shiga

Claudia Alvarez is a Miami-Dade Public Schools educator.

George O’Connor is the New York Times bestselling author of the Olympians graphic novel series featuring the Greek gods’ tragic, dramatic, and epic lives. He is also the creator of popular picture books such as The New York Times bestselling Kapow! and If I Had A Triceratops. The Olympians saga draws to a close with Olympians #12: Dionysos: A New God (First Second), which explores the tale of Dionysos, the last Olympian and maybe, the first of a new type of God. His story is told by the first Olympian herself, Hestia, goddess of the hearth and home. From her seat in the center of Mt. Olympus, Hestia relays the rise of Dionysos, from his birth to a mortal mother and his discovery of wine, to his battles with madness and his conquering of death itself, culminating, finally, in his ascent to Olympus and godhood.

Jason Shiga is a cartoonist whose comics have a geeky side and often feature exciting uses of math, mazes, puzzles, and unconventional narrative techniques. In his 25-year career, he has created eight graphic novels, 20 comic books, more than a dozen magazine and newspaper strips, and the world’s second-largest interactive comic. Adventuregame Comics is a new series of interactive graphic novels in which readers have a chance to choose how the story unfolds. Adventuregame Comics: Leviathan (Amulet Books) takes place in a medieval coastal village, where residents live in fear of a giant sea creature, the Leviathan, and it’s up to the reader to defeat it. As you wander about, the town’s backstory is revealed. At the library, you may learn why Leviathan destroyed it years ago. At the castle, you may discover that the town was once riddled with crime and theft, but that stopped because the Leviathan would wreak havoc for the smallest misdeeds. If you are lucky, you will find the old wizard who may possess the one thing that could keep the Leviathan at bay. But not everything is as it appears in this village. Can you discover the secrets and stop the Leviathan before it’s too late?

Nathan Hale is the #1 New York Times bestselling author and illustrator of the Hazardous Tales series. He also wrote and illustrated the graphic novels One Trick Pony and Apocalypse Taco. Let’s Make History! (Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales): Create Your Own Comics (Amulet Books) is an activity book that puts kids’ writing, drawing, and researching to the test. Do you have what it takes to be a Hazardous Cartoonist? Readers will tackle 71 comics-creating challenges with help from some of their favorite characters from the series. With each challenge, young cartoonists will learn new skills, from sound effects and character creation to building their own 10-page comic. Let’s Make History! is a hardcore comics workbook that will get kids writing their own thrilling, shocking, gruesome, and true histories.