Before I get into the review, can we all just take a moment to admire the stunning cover artwork for this book? Just look at it! I can’t stop looking at it.

OK, I’ll drag myself away for a moment.

The Music Box is a children’s graphic novel by Carbone (script) and Gijé (artwork). This is part one, ‘Welcome to Pandorient’. Nola is left a music box by her late mother, but it’s actually a portal to another world – Pandorient. We follow Nola on her first adventure into Pandorient and meet a cast of characters along the way.

This first story seems to be an opportunity to set the scene for The Music Box series; understanding how Nola comes to discover Pandorient, what Pandorient is like, and who her friends and enemies might come to be.

The artwork is simply amazing and I found myself taking ages to read the book as I was going back and fore between pages just to admire them.

I think this would be a hit with children who maybe are just starting their foray into the world of graphic novels and those who already enjoy them.

I will certainly be looking out for the next part of the series. My only reservation is that these are only available in a digital format (to the best of my knowledge) and I would love to see them printed. Having said that, the digital format is very affordable and I could maybe imagine a printed version to be very expensive, especially for a children’s book.

Regardless, I am giving The Music Box a solid five stars.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Europe Comics for providing a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This graphic novel is short and sweet with lovely art. It seems like the first part of many adventures, but a good stand alone as well. Seems like there might be many more adventures for Nola with her friends inside the musical globe (box?), in Pandorient!

In The Music Box, Nola has lost her mother only months before she turns eight. For her birthday, her father gives her a music box that belonged to her mum. Nola loves it at first sight, but soon she notices something very strange about the box. There's a little girl waving at her, from inside it! A whole new world, literally, opens up to her and she has no idea what's waiting.

While it was a sweet and charming graphic novel, it didn't really catch my attention. I guess it's a good opening book, if there's more to come. I did love the illustrations and the premise, but the overall presentation didn't work for me.

But if you're looking for a short comic for kid's in the age 9-12, I think this would suit greatly!

Thank you, Netgalley, for giving me the opportunity to read this book against an honest review!

*thank you to Netgalley and Europe Comics for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review*

4 stars.

As soon as id finished this, my first thought was, 'When is book 2 coming out!'

The story. The artwork. Excellent! Who doesn't love books that has the character going to another world through a magical object? Its one of my favourites and this Graphic Novel won my heart. It's a touching story about a little girl named Nola. Nola lost her mother (though we do not find out why), and for her 8th Birthday she is given a gift from her Father, that use to belong to her mother. At first she thinks it's just a pretty musicals object, but soon discovers that it's so much more when a little voice calls out to her. That is were the journey begins, a friendship is made and things about Nola's mother are discovered. This is a great story for all ages, and the artwork is just amazing. I definatly recommend and can not wait to read more in this series.

Beautiful illustrations, captivating story - but too short! It's a lovely story that somehow easily captures the essence of grief, believing in yourself, and a sense of adventure. I hope to see more of Pandorient in the future!

The Music Box is an amazing and so an interesting story! The first part of the comic is a story of its own and I really liked how short and coherent it was. It's a good comic for kids! No, perfect! The Music Box tells the story of Nola, who's mom has just passed away and her dad gives her a birthday present. The present is this weird orb-like music box and it's her mom's old one. Nola ends up inside the music box in order to help the people in Pandorient and learns that her mother had shrunk and gone there too before her. Now she needs to save a friend of her mom's and supposedly more adventures are on their way. The plot is quite simple, but entertaining and rolls nicely. The pace is good and oddly the pages are enough to make it work! The Music Box is cute and Carbone surely knows how to make the story interesting, but not too hard to understand.

The art is phenomenal. The comic looks so magical and beautiful that you cannot even believe your eyes. The style is round and cute, but there's magic and mystery in it too. The color world is also out of this world with deep and rich purple and pink hues. I loved the line art too, which is sketchy at times and works so amazingly well with everything. I so need to read more and I think I have to buy it to my library, since comics like this are very much needed. The Music Box has clever characters, heart in it and the rhythm is perfect. I wish more people could make stuff like this!

It's Nola's eighth birthday when she receives a strange music box from her late mother. She thinks she's hallucinating when she sees a girl waving at her from the globe, but soon she is sucked into the mysterious world of Pandorient. It's a strange place where looks can be deceiving. Somehow, Nola's mother has history with this place. It's up to Nola to take on a big responsibility.

This is a charming first volume to a series. The art is colorful and adorable. The pace is quick, but shallow. Volume 1 hinted at a much more sinister world than what was shown, so I am hopeful it won't disappoint!

3.5/4 stars

This was so cute! I loved the story and the artwork and colors seemed to blend really well together. I’m looking forward to the next volume of this cool series.

Beautiful artwork! The Music Box is a short, lovely and fun story about Nola, a eight year old girl who gets a special gift on her birthday. Somehow, she can be transported to the land inside the snow globe: Pandorient, a land of magical powers, strange creatures and a lot of mystery.

The artwork was a highlight for me - incredibly beautiful and I'm looking forward for the next chapters to come. :)

The Music Box by Carbone is a cute, fast-paced comic for children that hints at how children understand and process grief. We start the story on Nola's birthday, where she and her father are still trying to deal with the passing of her mother. It's not explained how her mom died, but I don't think it's the point. The point, is that we get to see how death and grieving is processed in a child's mind. Nola gets a music box that was once her mother's and finds more than she bargained for.


In her grief, Nola is clinging onto the memory of her mother, so she is very excited to have received this gift. She is also given a scarf that was her mother's favorite by a woman that shows up to visit her father. It's not really explained who the other woman is, so that part was kind of confusing, but the scarf plays apart in Nola letting go of her grief in the end of the novel.


The music box, is not quite that, it's actually another world called Pandorient, where her mother had visited but never told her about. There Nola meets two siblings who need help because their mother is dying and they don't know why. It turns out their mother knew Nola mother, so Nola makes it her job to help the brother and sister figure out who has poisoned their mother and why.


This is a cute story, but I think it works well because it writes about grief in a way children can understand. It treats death as a natural part of life, which I think is a really healthy way to look at things. I also really enjoyed the artwork in this one. It had some really saturated colors in it, and everything we saw in Pandorient seems so bright and beautiful. It really made this new world pop out of the page, since everything was so colorful and eye-catching.


If you are looking for a comic with a good message, or you just like to read about discovering micro-worlds, I recommend this one!

This is a great graphic novel for children just beginning to explore the format. Lush, vivid artwork. The illustrations of Pandorient are dreamy.

Lushly illustrated, The Music Box makes an excellent entry-level graphic novel.

For her eighth birthday, Nola receives a snow globe-like music box that had belonged to her late mother. While admiring its beauty, she notices something very strange: it looks like there is a live person inside the globe. Before you know it, Nola has shrunk down and entered the mysterious world of Pandorient. There she meets some new friends and learns secrets she never knew her mother had. Nola and her new friends then must hustle to find the answers behind the friends' mother's strange malady.

The story here isn't really new, but the characters and world-building are strong, and leave you wanting to dive into the next volume -- hopefully its release is not too long after this one!

Thank you to NetGalley and Europe Comics for providing me with a free DRC of this book.

The Music Box' is the story of Nola, a girl still reeling from the loss of her mother, and her first journey into the world of Pandorient. In this first installment of what is to become a series of graphic novels, readers are introduced to Pandorient through both the incredible illustrations and the characters which we meet. The book is written by Carbone and illustrated by Gijé, with its original language being French. Given that this is a translated work, my opinions on the writing style will inevitably be at least slightly innacurate and until I get a hold of this in French I won't be able to compare (not that I could understand it in French if it were more complex, but more to that later).

The most incredible aspect of this book is of course the beautiful illustrations (as you can see above). Not only was the world well conveyed but also the mood of the characters and the general atmosphere. The images were supported by the text, which to me was a bit of a let down. I found the writing style quite simplistic and juvenile,with exclamation marks punctuating what seemed like every second word. I understand that artful description is relatively unnecessary in a graphic novel but there's no need to oversimplify things that the characters say. For this reason I would recommend this book to children more than I would to teens or adults. Of course this may be simply because the version I read was a translation.

The plot itself was interesting and gave a good introduction to the world. Not only did we learn of the magical elements to their world but a unique political world was hinted at. And while I feel that this novel is best suited to children complicated politics may mean that these books will grow with their readership. The characters themselves were likable and I think that seeing them mature and their relationships develop will be interesting to see in the next installments.

I would like to thank NetGalley, Carbone, Gije and Europe Comics for giving me the opportunity to read this book.

3.✪'s Great comic for children. Easy story line to follow, bright eye-catching art, and a short read.

The premise is interesting. A young girl receives a music box for her 8th birthday. While playing she notices there may be more to her present than appears. Let the adventure begin.

This was shorter than I expected and I definitely wanted to read more.

This graphic novel was really cute! It is about a young girl named Nola who has just experienced the loss of her mother. On her birthday she receives a music box that once belonged to her mother, and is also a gateway to another world where her mother used to visit.

The drawing are absolutely beautiful. The colours and the style are exactly what I love to see in these middle grade graphic novels, bright and colourful. The designs of the characters are interesting and every character is unique. I loved the variety we saw in such a short volume. The story itself was very simple, but touching. There are a lot of twists and turns throughout the plot, as we learn more about Nola's mother and the new world that Nola has been placed into. Again, the story was fairly simple, and I would have wanted to the mystery to be a little more difficult to solve with more background on the world and characters.

Overall, this was a quick and cute middle grade graphic novel.

This was a very promising start to a new series that I'm now very intrigued about! On her 8th birthday, Nola's father gives her her late mother's music box, which turns out to contain a hidden magical world that her mother used to visit. There's a lot of hints that things are <i>not right</i> in Pandorient, but I know Nola will be back.

I'm looking forward to finding out more about Pandorient, and reading about Nola's adventures there.

My daughter Izzie and I read this together, at only 60 pages,it seemed quite rushed. Overall it was a cute and interesting short graphic novel.

Nola gets a mysterious music box on her birthday, this box is another world on its own with adventures and risks to take. But can Nola be brave enough?

I loved this book the art is beautiful, its easy to follow the panels. I admired Nola even though she has faced tradegy, she is willing to help her new friends and embark on this new adventure her mum left for her.
I look forward to the next in the series.

I received this book from Netgalley in exchange of an honest review.

Wow, this was just wow. I had high hopes for this one based on the cover, and then I started reading. I just adored this one, believe me it will grab you and not let you go until the end of the story (and then you just want more).

Say hello to Nola. She just turned 8 years old and has been given something that belonged to her mother, a small snowglobe/music box. Nola quickly finds out that the music box is much more special beside looking gorgeous. It contains a world filled with people (humans and non-humans). Nola is being called in to help (in a way that had me laughing, especially her reaction upon seeing the call for help) and thus begins the story.

Nola was such a fun character, though I did feel sorry for her once we find out that her mom has gone (I am guessing that means she died).
I thought Nola was very brave. Many people wouldn't have done what she does in this story. She kept going and thinking of solutions, she tried her best to help out her new friends and their mother.

As the story continues we find out more about the world Nola entered, Pandorient. We find out that it is a pretty strict world despite looking absolutely peaceful and gorgeous. There are rules everywhere, and people call on some sort of police-kind of force (even for something like someone having a relationship with someone they shouldn't have a relationship with). Which is kind of creepy and gave me flashbacks to Russia and Germany during certain times in history.
Plus, Nola, isn't all too welcome and has to be hidden. Nope, this world looks gorgeous but there is a lot going on and I am quite curious as to who rules this world and if it was always unfriendly towards strangers. Plus I do want to see more of the world in general as it looks pretty dang gorgeous. How big is this world? Just this one city? Or is there a whole world that one can explore should they choose to? And how did it come to be in the globe/music box or how did it start to exist? Hopefully we will get more answers in the next volumes.

There was also a hint of mystery, namely how did Andrea's mom get sick? What is going on with the water? Is it the water? It was quite fun to see the kids (Igor, Nola, Andrea) try to figure out what was going on and if they could fix things.

The ending was great, and we have a new item that will give more information on Nola's mom and Pandorient.

And then there was the return, and yes, I have to say I sniffled a bit at how sweet the dad is. Aww!

The art was just amazing, as I said I loved the cover already, but the art inside is just as gorgeous.

All in all, I need more Pandorient. I need more of this series. It was just too good. I would highly recommend this one to everyone.

Review first posted at https://twirlingbookprincess.com/

This book tells the story of Nola who receives a music box for her eighth birthday. I really enjoyed this graphic novel. The drawings were great and lovely. The story was easy to follow and it contained a great message, a little bit of adventure and cute characters.