What Is It?

'What Is It?' by Nicole Hoang with art by Dustin Nguyen started life as a story written by Nicole. As a wedding present, Dustin illustrated it. It's a childhood story she wrote and with the new illustrations, it's a cute storybook to read aloud.

A young girl in the woods is looking for something she saw out there the day before. As she describes it, we start to see it's features. Ears like shells, face like a cow and bad breath. Is this a friend or a foe? If it's dangerous, can the little girl defeat it? If not, why is she looking for it.

The story was written when the author was 10 and it shows in places, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have it's charm. Dustin Nguyen is known for drawing Li'l Gotham and Study Hall of Justice and his illustrations here are winning. The little girl is adorable. I wonder if he based the drawings on what his wife looked like at that age? I think this is the first picture book I've read by a graphic novel company. If not, they are pretty rare. I applaud KaBoom! for taking the chance.

I received a review copy of this ebook from Boom! Studios and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this ebook.

I am in love with this book. I want so many of the illustrations to frame and hang on my wall. The rhyming story is cute, and you never do figure out what it is. But it is a purple fluffy thing, with whom I would love to be friends.

Added Goodreads
Added Litsy (if available. It was hard to find on goodreads).

With some changes this could be a beautiful children's book but there's something lacking at the minute.

The illustrations are absolutely gorgeous and bring so much to the book, although I think it could benefit from having something small on the text pages too.

It's the writing that's the problem here, I understand the author wrote it as a child, which is lovely and should be celebrated but simple things like changing the order of some of the words would help it to make much more sense. Also, there doesn't seem to be much point to the story. We never find out who/what the monster is or why it's there. Does the girl ever see the monster again? Basically, it asks more than it answers. That's not to say it's all bad though, the rhymes are lovely and it flows really nicely.

I would absolutely look in to buying this for my job as a nursery nurse if some of these problems were addressed but in its current form I think it would be far more likely to confuse the children than interest them.