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WORK TITLE: All the Best Dogs
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Male.
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Illustrator and graphic designer.
WRITINGS
Author has created the artwork for numerous coloring books.
SIDELIGHTS
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Manuel Preitano is an illustrator and graphic designer who is from Italy and works for publishers in both Italy and the United States. He has helped to design a variety of toys, done the artwork for numerous coloring books, and illustrated everything from book covers to comic books to middle-grade novels.
All the Best Dogs is a middle-grade novel written by Emily Jenkins and illustrated by Preitano. The story takes place on a June weekend when four sixth graders—Kaleb, Mei-Alice, Ezra, and Jilly—take their dogs to the local dog park. Kaleb, Mei-Alice, and Ezra know each other, but newcomer Jilly and her two terriers need to find a way to fit in. Each of the kids and their dogs also have problems to overcome, including finding a missing dog and trying to rebuild a friendship. Preitano’s opening illustration of the various kids and dogs helps establish their personalities.
An “upbeat romp” in which the children and dogs “gradually come together to weather life’s ups and downs” is how a writer in Publishers Weekly described the story. The result for this reviewer is a “tale that’s chock-full of heart and lots of good dogs.” A writer in Kirkus Reviews was even more enthusiastic, calling the book a “real good, feel-good, doggy delight.” They noted that the illustrations are “generously distributed” throughout the book, and they praised the book for its “sharp insight into how both pets and middle schoolers see the world.”
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BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Kirkus Reviews, September 1, 2024, review of All the Best Dogs.
Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, July-August, 2020, Charles de Lint, review of The Oracle Code, pp. 83+; January-February, 2022, review of Whistle: A New Gotham City Hero, pp. 105+.
Publishers Weekly, September 2, 2024, review of All the Best Dogs, p. 64.
Manuel Preitano is an Italian illustrator and graphic designer, and the co-creator of the Destiny, NY series. He has worked on a wide range of toy designs, book covers, illustrations, and comic books, both in the U.S. and Italy.
The Oracle Code, by Marieke Nijkamp and Manuel Preitano, DC Comics, 2020, $16.99, tpb
For as long as I can remember, both Marvel and DC Comics have had a habit of repurposing their characters, which means they gave us endless versions of, say, the origins of Superman or Spider-Man. In the case of those two characters, sometimes it was to update their stories for new generations of readers, but sometimes it was to tell entirely different stories using those same characters rather than coming up with new ones.
I never really understood the practice.
Let me rephrase that. I understand the commercial reasons (name recognition means that the comic will sell better when repurposing a character). What I don't understand is the creative reasoning.
Repurposing is what's happening here. The Barbara "Babs" Gordon we meet in The Oracle Code is the daughter of Police Commissioner James Gordon, long-time ally of the Batman in Gotham City. If I remember correctly, she was the original Batgirl, was shot by the Joker, which put her in a wheelchair, and eventually became Oracle (a computer hacker) in the pages of Birds of Prey.
The only resemblance to any of that is that the Babs here gets shot (though by a regular criminal) and ends up in that wheelchair. Her father (still Commissioner Gordon) is worried about how she's coping with her current physical challenges, so he enrolls her in a rehabilitation program in an institution called The Arkham Center for Independence.
The night she was shot, Babs was out with her best friend Benjamin, but ever since the event that saw her lose the use of her legs, he's been ghosting her. By the time she enters the institution, she's angry, frustrated, and depressed, and unwilling to respond to any friendly overtures by other patients, even when they're as welcoming as two in particular, Yeong and Issy. The only comfort she gets is from a patient named Jena, who comes to her at night when she's having nightmares and calms her down with stories.
The therapists work at teaching those things the girls will need to reintegrate with "normal" society, but Yeong and Issy try to teach Babs something more important: to find ways that she can still feel fulfilled and useful and maybe even have some fun, just as she is. It's a hard sell with Babs.
When you're suffering from depression, it's hard not to push away the very people whose support you need.
I don't want to get too much into the plot or the speculative elements of the story. Trust that they're solid and are enough to keep you turning pages to find out what happens next. What interested me far more were the character arcs and the relationships between the young women.
There was something special about watching them investigate a growing mystery of missing children, utilizing their brains and spunk, and not allowing their physical limitations to get in the way of what they need to do.
The idea of inclusivity gets thrown around a lot these days, the idea of minority groups being able to see themselves on the page or on the screen. I think it's a positive thing, and what's also important is that it allows people without the same challenges or perspectives to see through another's eyes where they can gain a whole new understanding.
That's the beauty of fiction. It allows us into the viewpoints of all sorts of people, and when we gain empathy for another, we also become their defendants, and that's something that can be hard to acquire otherwise.
It's not the only reason that we need to hear from diverse voices, but when you combine it with a good story and characters we love, what's not to like?
A couple of last things. Marieke Nijkamp provides the words and story but artist Manuel Preitano does a fantastic job with his illustrations. I like his panel flow, his perspectives, and his expressive linework. It's also fun that he shows the stories Jena tells Babs in an entirely different style--simple and childlike--which adds to their impact.
The other thing I want to mention is that one could take out all the DC Comics connections and you'd still have a terrific, fun, and moving story. Does the repurposing help? This reader found it a bit of a distraction, because, except for Police Commissioner Gordon, everything else is fresh and different from the DC canon, and I'd rather not have had to consider it.
And frankly, the story's the better for how little connection it has.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2020 Spilogale, Inc.
http://www.sfsite.com/fsf/
Source Citation
Source Citation
MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
de Lint, Charles. "The Oracle Code." The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, vol. 139, no. 1-2, July-Aug. 2020, pp. 83+. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A629314918/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=80074d2f. Accessed 24 Feb. 2025.
Whistle: A New Gotham City Hero , by E. Lockhart & Manuel Preitano, DC Comics, 2021, $16.99, tpb.
I GET TAKEN to task occasionally by a reader or two whenever I include a review of a graphic novel in this column. I know that YA books aren't always welcome either with some readers. So Whistle by E. Lockhart & Manuel Preitano, since it's a YA graphic novel, has a bit of a hill to climb straight out of the gate.
But while this column's called Books to Look For , for me it's not so much about the delivery system as it is the story itself. It doesn't matter whether it's a traditional book, an ebook, or a graphic novel. What matters is the story, the characters, how well it's told, the beauty of the language, and even the message.
And Whistle delivers on all counts, with the added bonus of some terrific art by Manuel Preitano.
Willow Zimmerman lives in Down River, a rundown neighborhood of Gotham. Yes, that Gotham, but there's nary a Batman to be seen. This isn't that kind of a story. Willow's a student activist who also works nights at a local animal shelter to earn money to keep her family afloat. Her mother was a professor of Jewish studies, but she has cancer, and it's progressed to the point where she's unable to work. Willow's only real friend is a white stray Great Dane named Lebowitz that follows her around when she's not in the shabby apartment where she lives with her mother.
Bills are piling up. Willow's mother has stopped her treatments because without health insurance they can't afford them, but that just means she's getting sicker every day.
At this point E. Nigma, an old friend of her mother's, contacts Willow on the sly because Nigma and her mother have been estranged for years. These days he's a real estate tycoon who hosts private poker parties with Gotham's elite in odd locations that can only be found by solving the riddles on the invitations. He offers Willow a job as the host of his parties. She finds the venues, arranges for the catering, handles the money, and does whatever she can to make sure the poker nights run smoothly. She also makes friends with an associate professor named Pammie Isley, a fellow activist who's also a botanist.
The job isn't exactly legal, but no one's being harmed, and now Willow can afford the critical treatments her mother needs, pay their bills, and even get herself some fancy clothes, which she needs for her job. When her mother asks where all the money's coming from, Willow says it's from her job at the animal shelter instead of from what Nigma pays her and the tips she gets from the high-rolling players.
Things are going well until one night on the way home from one of the poker nights, she and Lebowitz are attacked by Killer Croc, a monstrous mutated crocodile man. They manage to survive but pass out at the scene of the attack. When they wake, something strange has happened. They can now understand each other, and Willow slowly discovers that she has acquired some odd powers: an acute sense of smell, better hearing, and the ability to whistle dogs to her.
She also discovers that Nigma and his high-rolling friends are some of Gotham's most corrupt criminals who plan to raze Down River, displacing the people living there to make room for high-end condos and fancy stores. And it also turns out that Pammie is a bit of an eco-terrorist, "greening" buildings so that they become uninhabitable because they're covered in a sudden growth of vines and trees and the like.
Willow knows she needs to stop them. And she's tired of living a double life, telling lies to her mother and the kids at school. But she's conflicted because she also knows that Nigma's money has saved her mother's life.
What does she do? You'll have to read the book to find out.
In some ways, this is a story we've seen before, but the characters are so well-drawn, and Willow's a treasure, a wonderful mix of kid and responsible adult. I loved her every moment on the page. I loved the dogs. I loved how Willow uses her little powers to such great effect.
Whistle doesn't end quite the way one might expect, but it's so satisfying and Preitano's art is a joy throughout. His depictions of the characters are perfectly expressive, his linework is gorgeous, and every panel has this wonderful sense of space--you can almost see the rest of the world beyond his panels. Oh, and he draws a great dog!
You don't need any previous familiarity with Gotham City, or its heroes and villains, but if you've read a Batman comic, or watched one of the movies, you'll get to see a few of the characters in ways you never have before.
I was enchanted by every aspect of this story and the reason I'm bringing it to your attention is because I think you might be, too. It was such a feel-good book for me that I've read it twice now.
Highly recommended.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2022 Spilogale, Inc.
http://www.sfsite.com/fsf/
Source Citation
Source Citation
MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
"Whistle: A New Gotham City Hero." The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, vol. 142, no. 1-2, Jan.-Feb. 2022, pp. 105+. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A689360808/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=f879e5ee. Accessed 24 Feb. 2025.
All the Best Dogs
Emily Jenkins, illus. by Manuel Preitano. Delacorte, $17.99 (208p) ISBN 978-0-593-65043-1
The lives of four sixth graders and their dogs intersect during one chaotic June weekend in this upbeat romp. Kaleb and his Bernese mountain dog/Newfoundland mix Cup-Cup, whose friendliness matches her enormous size; Mei-Alice and her three-legged "corgi-adjacent" rescue pooch Panda, who has a forbidden craving for chocolate; and anxious Ezra and his chowchow Mr. Cashmere are the top dogs at their Brooklyn dog park. But the arrival of newcomer Jilly and her grumpy old terriers Grover and Lottie throws a wrench in the established pack dynamics. Via multiple perspectives both human and canine, the group gradually come together to weather life's ups and downs. As Jilly yearns to fit in, Kaleb and Mei-Alice clash during rehearsal for the school play, and, while searching for an on-the-run Mr. Cashmere, Ezra and Kaleb attempt to rebuild their friendship following an incident. Simple prose by Jenkins (the Upside-Down Magic series) conveys characters experiencing big emotions and finding common ground thanks to their canine companions, resulting in a tale that's chock-full of heart and lots of good dogs. Illustrations by Preitano (Destiny, NY) depict a visually diverse community of pups and people. Final art not seen by PW. Ages 8-12. Agent: Elizabeth Kaplan, Elizabeth Kaplan Literary. (Nov.)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
Source Citation
Source Citation
MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
"All the Best Dogs." Publishers Weekly, vol. 271, no. 33, 2 Sept. 2024, p. 64. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A812513345/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=80c5db83. Accessed 24 Feb. 2025.
Jenkins, Emily ALL THE BEST DOGS Delacorte (Children's None) $17.99 11, 5 ISBN: 9780593650431
Every dog lover thinks their dog is the best in the universe, writes Jenkins in this cozy neighborhood tale and they're all correct.
Displaying sharp insight into how both pets and middle schoolers see the world, the author spins interwoven storylines around regular visitors to a Brooklyn dog run. In this safe social space, friendship crises, beloved companions lost and found, tempests emotional and digestive, and new family arrangements play out in benign ways over the course of one June weekend. Narrated in third person, the book follows a bevy of canine and human characters, giving readers true-to-life glimpses of both viewpoints. The canine cast outnumbers the racially diverse human one and is large enough to necessitate an occasional flip back to Preitano's opening gallery for a refresher. Still, in both the narrative and in the informal ink-and-wash scenes, generously distributed throughout, the dogs--from 50-pound puppy Cup-Cup to three-legged, "corgi adjacent" Panda--are as individualized in looks and temperament as their two-legged devotees. Free of tragedy if not occasional tears, guilty secrets, and moments of distress, this buoyant outing delivers nicely on a reassuring authorial promise at the outset that things will turn out well. Final art not seen.
A real good, feel-good, doggy delight.(Fiction. 9-11)
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2024 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Source Citation
Source Citation
MLA 9th Edition APA 7th Edition Chicago 17th Edition Harvard
"Jenkins, Emily: ALL THE BEST DOGS." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Sept. 2024. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A806452768/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=46ae7c5b. Accessed 24 Feb. 2025.