Charles Dickens: Scenes from an Extraordinary Life

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Inspired by Charles Dickens' own words, Mick and Brita bring this extraordinary genius to life, revealing Dickens' childhood working in a London boot polish factory and charting his meteoric rise to fame as a young novelist. Follow him as he climbs a volcano, goes on tour to the US, presides at a family Christmas and gives a thrilling public reading. And discover the stories of ten of Dickens' most famous novels, dramatised for younger readers with captions and graphic-novel comic-strips.

Excerpt provided by Syndetics

1824 - I Must WorkIn which 12-year-old Charles is forced by his parents to get a job!"The blacking warehouse was a crazy, tumbledown house, on the river and overrun with old, grey rats. My work was to cover the pots of paste-blacking and to tie them round with a string... No words can express the secret agony of my soul! My whole nature was so penetrated with the grief and humiliation." Excerpted from Charles Dickens: Scenes from an Extraordinary Life All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

Starting at the very beginning ("I was born on a Friday, at twelve o'clock at night"), Dickens narrates his own life story in this biography from the team behind What Mr. Darwin Saw. Loosely rendered pencil-and-watercolor scenes with speech-bubble interjections from characters take center stage, while small illustrated sidebars provide additional context as Dickens moves to London, gets his first taste of theater, suffers family tragedies, and embarks on his career as a writer. A bonus: tidy comic strip-style panels provide quick summaries of several Dickens novels, which may whet readers' appetite to further explore his writing. Ages 6-9. (Dec.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

School Library Journal Review

Gr 4-6-Manning and Granstrom chronologically construct this picture-book-length portrait around direct quotes from Dickens's books and letters. A quote from David Copperfield, for example, that alludes to his birth, launches the first spread, "BABY DICKENS-1812." The text is casual, not intimidating, and switches smoothly from the writer's voice to that of a third-person biographer. The book takes a fresh approach that effectively incorporates graphic-novel-style illustrative elements such as speech balloons and panels. This title breaks Dickens's biography into manageable pieces for novice readers.-Jill Heritage Maza, Montclair Kimberley Academy, Montclair, NJ (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Booklist Review

This colorful, fully illustrated book offers a simplified biography of Dickens, shows how his books reflected aspects of his life, and comments on social conditions in nineteenth-century England. Stretching across each double-page spread is a large pencil-and-watercolor illustration with smaller insets of first-person text representing Dickens' point of view and single or multiple comics-style panels that comment on his life or retell one of his best-known stories. For example, an eight-frame abridgment introduces Little Dorrit and ends by exhorting children to read the novel. Maps of London appear on the endpapers, while the back page carries a glossary, a list of Dickens' works mentioned in the book, a list of sources (without page references) of Dickens - own words' used in the text, and a list of the authors' inspirations and general sources for the book. Ambitious and complex, this attractively illustrated book presents a good deal of information in a highly accessible format.--Phelan, Carolyn Copyright 2010 Booklist

Kirkus Book Review

What Mr Darwin Saw (2009), to coax another tangible life out of the 19th century. Using a combination of multiple panels, boxes and wonderfully evocative background spreads, they roam through many of the experiences that shaped Dickens: pulled from school, his father thrown into debtors' prison, the pot-blacking work and then, yes!, success. The authors have used material from Dickens' letters, quotes and miscellaneous writings to shape the relatively ample narrative boxes, and the words flow like quicksilver: "I have often transcribed important public speeches on the palm of my hand, by the light of a dark lantern, in a post-chaise and four, galloping through wild country, through the dead of night!" This fits hand in glove with their colors, which are as deep as old dyes, and the general bustle of the urban scenes. Smaller, comic-booklike streams of panels give sensible, welcoming introductions to such works as Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, Bleak House, A Christmas Carol and David Copperfield. A joyfully informal conveyance of the atmosphere and facts that swarmed around Dickens' life. (Picture book/biography. 8-12)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.