Amy Unbounded: Belondweg Blossoming [Paperback]

Rachel Hartman (Author)

Book Description

Amy Unbounded: Belondweg Blossoming collects issues 7-12 of Rachel Hartman's award-winning comic book, and includes an introduction by Linda Medley, a dramatis personae for new readers, and a few extra pages of silliness at the back.

Belondweg Blossoming follows the lives of Amy and her neighbor Bran Ducanahan the summer they turn ten. Amy has begun reading the national epic, Belondweg, about a semi-mythical queen of the same name who united Goredd and saved her people from invaders. Amy only wishes her own life were half as exciting. But how is life supposed to live up to literature when your mother is a semi-domesticated barbarian, all the knights you know are banished, and the only dragon you have ever met is a geeky grad student?

Join Amy as she dances the Two-foot, wears a really ugly bridesmaid's dress, becomes friends (in spite of everything!) with Bran, imitates the patron saint of ducks, flees from rampaging sheep, learns that love doesn't always conquer all, chugs buttermilk, and begins to understand that even Belondweg didn't have to save the world all by herself.

Winner of the 2001 Xeric Grant.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Hartman self-publishes her mini-comic Amy Unbounded on a copy machine, but the deliciously imaginative series about a medieval nine-year-old girl and her friends and family has built up a devoted following. Last year, Hartman won a Xeric Foundation Grant to publish this collection of stories as her first book. It's a gently paced ensemble comedy of manners, in which Amy observes business intrigue, culture clashes, class machinations among grown-ups (which she doesn't entirely understand), has her first crush and begins reading Belondweg, her fictional country's national epic. Hartman has a historian's eye for the realities of preindustrial life (her characters spend a lot of their time preparing food), and a storyteller's gift for making them fresh and funny. She makes even the standard elements of fantasies set in the Middle Ages seem hilariously normal. In Amy's world, the knight in exile is an uncle who stops by for dinner once a week and the dragon disguised in human form is a grad student researching local customs. Hartman draws the characters in a bold, cartoon style (dots for eyes, bulbous noses), but illustrates her kitchens, churches and peasant outfits with real care. While the story is set in medieval times, Amy and her playmates think and act like contemporary kids. Hartman's stories are driven by her elegant writing. Even minor characters are memorable and vivid, and the story proceeds with the casual verve of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Rachel Hartman had no idea she wanted to be a cartoonist. She sort of tripped and fell into it by mistake. Her comics are enjoyed by women, men, children, frogs, and salamanders. She lives near Philadelphia with her husband, a knight of physics.

Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Pug House Pr (April 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0971790000
• ISBN-13: 978-0971790001
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,841,257 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not just for comic readers, April 26, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Amy Unbounded: Belondweg Blossoming (Paperback)

I'm not a big fan of graphic novels, or comics in general. But when a friend told me that Hartman's "Amy Unbounded" had the literary merit of Dickens, in spite of being full of cartoons, I had to try it.

First of all, this is not a cheap flimsy comic. This is a *thick*, 200+ page paperback, professionally bound and printed. It's the sort of thing meant to keep for years, or give as a gift.

"Amy Unbounded" tells the story of a somewhat precocious 10-year old girl living in the fictional medieval land of Goredd. Amy's friends include Bran the Icky Boy Next Door, a scholarly dragon travelling incognito, her uncle the exiled knight, and a plethora of fascinating Goreddis.

Through the eyes of young Amy we see the hopes, disappointments, limitations, and human character of women and men living in a medieval society.

In spite of its fictional setting, the book seems packed with extremely well-researched tidbits on medieval life, farming, clothing, and society.

I approached this work as a novel, and not as a comic book. The story is outstandingly strong on its own. But for those who are more visually oriented will enjoy the carefully rendered artwork.

I would give this book an even higher rating if the web site would let me!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wow!! This is great!!, May 8, 2002

By 

L. Hartman (Rock Island, IL, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Amy Unbounded: Belondweg Blossoming (Paperback)

I love Belondweg Blossoming, I wish there were ten more books just like it. I'm showing it to all my friends and making them buy copies!

I love the characters -- real people, good people, with complex lives that have profundity and humor. I love the drawings. I love the writing -- poetic, real, able to spin that web of good literature, where the words feel magical.

This is great! I'm in love! (With Foughfaugh, gosh what a hunk!)

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I cannot believe that this wonderful graphic novel has not, March 25, 2005

By 

D. Lively (Fort Worth, Tx United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Amy Unbounded: Belondweg Blossoming (Paperback)

had any reviews or attention on Amazon.com since 2002. Some prescient person purchased this once and future classic of graphic novels for our library's collection where I discovered it. I bought a copy for my nieces and sent it to them.

My sister and nieces have read it out loud together five times! The phrase "lead on rabbit man" has entered into their personal family language and I have been elevated to the Favorite Aunt Hall of Fame on the strength of that gift.

The literary world should be beating a path to Rachel Hartman's door. Movie producers should be begging for the privilege of committing her delightful creation to film. And there should be sequels to it. Why OH WHY is there not even one sequel?

Buy this! Read it! Give it to your favorite girl children AND boy children! THIS IS A CLASSIC! DO YOU HEAR ME! A CLASSIC OF CHILDREN'S LITERATURE COMPARABLE TO ANY OLD HARRY POTTER BOOK OUT THERE OR YET TO BE.

AND RACHEL HARTMAN, IF YOU ARE STILL OUT THERE SOMEWHERE, WRITE AND DRAW A SEQUEL! IF YOU DO, WE WILL BUY IT AND READ IT! I PROMISE YOU.