The Black Island

Hello! Welcome to The Young Reader's Review! Before starting this brand new review, I wanted to thank all of those who have been on this blog, because The Young Readers Review has now more than 1 000 views! You cannot imagine how important this blog is to me and for it to have 1 000 views is absolutely extraordinary and that I’m very grateful of the fact that people actually read it.

So I was laying on my bed staring into the abyss thinking of a book that I could possibly review. Nothing came to my mind at first. I laid there for what seemed hours before I decided to get up…to go stare at the books sitting on my rather broad bookshelf. I examined closely every book until an idea came to my mind; why not review a comic from The Adventures of Tintin, one of the most brilliant masterpieces in the history of comic-books. So that’s what triggered my body to get up and to go fetch my computer to type away. I have to admit that it was difficult to choose one comic-book, but I chose the one that left me in ecstasy when I was a small child: The Black Island. To be completely frank this book by the talented Belgian illustrator and author Hergé, still amazes me today. So let’s get on with today’s brand new book review.

We have all heard of the famous protagonist Tintin and his loyal canine companion, Snowy.  Tintin is a clever young man who works as a journalist and also as a detective. We can almost say that he is more a detective than he is a journalist. But those are practically the only things that we know about Tintin. He isn’t a very developed character which make him easier to understand in some way. In The Adventures of Tintin we follow him, and Snowy, his little white dog, throughout their journeys on detective cases.

 The Black Island starts with Tintin and Snowy taking a leisurely stroll around in a park, until all of a sudden, Tintin spots a plane landing in a field nearby. Tintin approaches the people in the plane to see if they need help, but they shoot him. The criminals get away, and Tintin wakes up in a hospital in the presence of his two friends: Thompson and Thomson who are police officers and twins who are practically identical (not in the shape of their moustaches and their eyebrows for those are curious). But all of a sudden, the twins receive a phone call saying that an unregistered plane crashed in England. So they leave to find the plane and Tintin decides to go there as well.

Already at the beginning, Hergé throws us quite quickly into the detective and crime world in a very smart way, so much so that we don’t even realize it at first. One also realizes that Hergé’s writing technique and that the drawings are pleasant too look at. What I love about these drawings, is that they are specific to Hergé and when we see them we easily recognize his unique style.

Coming back to the story, Tintin takes a train from Brussels to the coast. During this train ride, he is falsely accused of the robbery of another passenger, who is actually part of a criminal gang that he encounters later in the story. Afterwards, Tintin is arrested by Thomson and Thompson but he manages to escape. In the following events, Tintin and his companion, run away from the two twins, are kidnapped by a gang of counterfeiters, and is a victim of a plane crash. Towards the end, he ends up in a small Scottish village where the only thing the villagers talk about is this island called “The Black Island”, where a monster is said to dwell. But the real question is, is this so called monster even real? Well that’s what Tintin is determined to find out and at the end, all the puzzle pieces are reunited and the mystery is solved.

We all know this but I simply find that Hergé is a genius. Everything about The Adventures of Tintin seems so smartly thought out, from the script to the quality and precision of the drawings. I do not know how to explain it, but Hergé adds a sort of charm that we can only find in his work. In The Black Island, the writing and story captivates us and makes us want to read more. This comic sets itself also apart from the others because the plot is inspired by multiple stories, like for example The Lochness Monster, and for some reason I find this interesting for a comic. I also highly enjoy this comic-book because anybody can read it. A child could easily read it and an adult could also be entertained by The Black Island.

So that was it for my new review! I hope that you guys like it and that you will read The Black Island because it really is amazing. Don’t forget to subscribe to my Google Plus account and to leave a comment below of what you thought of this review. Also, feel free to look at my older book reviews. Thank you for reading, and see you next time! (*˙︶˙*)☆*°