Cover Image: Star Beasts

Star Beasts

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Member Reviews

Star Beasts is a fun and imaginative book for young readers and transitional readers. Vivid imagery, humor, action and adventure — an exploration of two parallel comics worlds and an explosion of creativity.

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Rather the incoherent mess, I'm afraid, this has a humble Earth-based dog become reluctant space-ship captain for some Guardians of the Galaxy, Green Lantern kind of idea. He's just had a bit of a 'mare with the Crocodiles of Somewhere, who we knew as good friends with Earth, but now it's worse – the Krill on Pluto are miffed to find they're actually on a dwarf planet and not a real one that they've ganged up with the Crocs against us. Cue singing zebras, antsy scientist sheep, a goldfish in a floating bowl... Now any oddball story can be set anywhere, but when it is one like this, with so many in-universe terms, dodgy names for places and characters (I kept reading one as "Flash Titsa") and sheer incoherent weirdness when coherent weirdness would have been fine, I don't think it's nearly as friendly enough for the target audience. Yes, it's pell-mell action, and the Saturday morning cartoon vibe of the artwork is spot-on, but boy, rein in on the quirk next time, please.

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The Short Version: An intergalactic children’s adventure that has a good message but patronizes children with half hearted effort and ultimately ends up as very MEH.

The Long Version: This version won’t be very long either. Star Beasts is a title I would not recommend. The way the story is set up is very much the way a child might tell a story “Ok, so there’s a dog, and it has to go into space to like save the galaxy from a shrimp thing cuz there’s a giant space monster”. Then they smack together a bunch of space words with ordinary items and that’s all you need apparently.

Star Beasts is everything that is wrong with children’s fiction. It treats children like they’re idiots. It makes little effort to establish a coherent story just assuming children won’t notice. Children are smart and can comprehend complex ideas and deserve stories where they put in the effort to craft a compelling story.

There are funny moments splashed throughout, but overall it’s lackluster.

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ARC Copy...although I like the themes and story lines involving family love/bonds and companionship especially in regards to the bond between Bandit and his human, I'm sorry to say overall the work itself felt like "just another one".

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Star Beasts is a children's graphic novel.
This story follows Bandit, the new Star Beast's captain of Earth. Bandit and his crew explore unique places, including a swamp, the ocean, as well as other planets. Bandit loves his role with the Star Beasts but longs to go home back to his human.
This was a super cute, sci-fi read. It was easy to read and my nine-year-old enjoyed it. My younger children, five and seven, did not seem too interested.

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Like the best talking animal adventure series directed to younger audiences, it's funny in a way that kids will enjoy but but has a dash of cheekiness which shows the writers know they're being a bit silly. This creates a little something for older readers as well, and the overall product is quite entertaining.

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