I enjoyed this story.  It was a personal exploration of a nine-year-old boy named Nathan finding a way to escape from the real-world issues of bullies and his older brother dying from cancer.

There is some significant symbolism, and the world is an allegory for how young minds deal with trauma and change.

This past week I read Ben Hatke’s ‘Mighty Jack and Zita the Spacegirl’ I first started reading Ben’s work with ‘Mighty Jack’ but never read any of his Zita stories.  I must say, as someone who only knew half of the characters in this book, Ben did a fantastic job not getting the reader lost in the story. 

It takes a specific storytelling skill to start a book halfway through a character’s developmental story arc and not make a first-time reader get lost, and Ben did a great job with that.

I read ‘Mighty Jack and the Goblin King’ by Ben Hatke this past week.  Compared to the first book, ‘Mighty Jack’, this one had less dialogue and more action.  The second book was also much more overt in its inspiration of ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’ and also gives a robust backstory and does some substantial world-building as well.

What I appreciated about this book, as I have daughters and work as a disability advocate in my day job is how Ben naturally includes into the story strong female characters and normalizes the inclusion of folks living with disabilities.