Review: The Pasta Family and Here Comes Gravy Girl

Have you ever read the Pasta Family book series? If you haven’t then you are missing a treat. It’s an on going children’s book series and it is very good. I have recently read “Pasta Family 7: Here Comes…Gravy Girl!” Written and Illustrated by Michael Ciccolini. Mr. Ciccolini has a firm grasp on comic book superheroes. While reading the book I felt at times that I could have been reading Marvel’s Spider-Girl. He takes every comic book convention and turns it on his ear. One that really made me smile was the character Dark Orzo. It seems to poke fun at Batman and the grim and gritty era heroes. Orzo can only become Dark Orzo when he skips breakfast and his blood sugar drops. In other words, he gets really cranky. I nearly laughed out loud.

The bright colorful pages make the artwork just pop out. It catches your eye on each page. On one page the background is red. The next page blue. Turn the page again and you may see yellow or green. None of this is blinding or distracting. It adds to the feel of the book. In some ways each page is like the cover of a comic book. I’m sure that you can remember seeing the cover to one of your favorite comic book covers where the background was just a primary color.
The book’s main focus is on relationships. Dark Ozo secretly has a crush on Gravy Girl. While he won’t tell her he is always there for her as Dark Ozo or as Ozo. Another story shows us how Gravy Girl’s rival at school, Verma Chelly, tricks her and steals her powers and makes herself Magnifichick.

She does use her powers to help people but only in situations that can make her rich and famous. Eventually Gravy Girl gets her powers back and ask Magnifi-chick to help defeat an alien that requires more power then Gravy Girl has. So now a new relationship is formed between these two superpowers. The alien also learns that he should stop spending time traveling the universe and spend more time with his family. In doing that he teaches Gravy Girl that she should spend more time with her little brother.
Most of your best stories, no matter if it is a comic book, novel or movie, teach life lessons like this. They are stories that we can all relate to.

I can’t say enough about how this children’s book reminded me of some of my favorite comic books. There is a touch of Spider-girl in the book. There is also elements of Captain Marvel. Just like Billy Batson must say Shazam to become Captain Marvel, Annalle must say Fazool to become Gravey Girl. I really enjoyed reading this book and I suggest that everyone get it and read it to your children and for your own enjoyment as well.
You can get it on line at http://www.thepastafamily.com/ or http://www.amazon.com/Pasta-Family-Here-Comes-Gravy/dp/1466265019/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1322737172&sr=8-7.