Broken Frontier

Jack and Benny have moved to Chowder Bay, Maine for the summer. With no television, no friends, and no big city, what will they do all summer? When they meet an old fisherman named Angus, hear the legend of a beast named "Old Salty" and face a mysterious investigator from the state, there boredom takes a back seat to the biggest adventure of their lives.

Oni has certainly made a push to gain some of the readership that manga has amassed over the last few years. With books like Scott Pilgrim, Last Call, and Borrowed Time being published in black and white with affordable digest sized editions, they have emulated the style. Fresh original stories that head away from super-hero archetypes is the other key to grabbing that market and all of those certainly provide for that, but they aren’t kid friendly and the kids seem to love some Naruto and some One-Piece. Salt Water Taffy is a great entry to try to get that younger audience.

Matthew Loux makes his first step in the right direction with an angular and stylized art. These are character designs that will definitely catch the eye of someone trying to steer away from the spandex world of metahumans. It also allows for a few interesting things to happen. First of all, Loux uses his style to create a vast array of very emotive looks and it is very helpful in conveying action on a static panel. Most interestingly though, is that with the child characters who seem to be in the preadolescent years working into the awkward stage of their development, these characters are identifiable in their lankiness and how they are not quite comfortable in their own skins.

This same kind of technique is used in the story as well. Loux is clearly aiming at the tween set with the story of adventure on the coast during the summer. It is infused with an astonishing amount of imagination and that is important to that target audience. This book will allow them to keep the juices flowing in their little dream engines while they try to dissect the tall tales told within. It’s a unique thing to aim at such a young audience and to tap into the morality lessons that will make a parent warm to your book; all while telling such a charming and entertaining tale.

Really, that is where this book is most successful. Jack and Benny are brothers, they fight and grumble at each other, but in the end they are their own best friends and the adventure that Loux provides them allows for them to bond in a way that they could not have done elsewhere. It is the kind of piece, while wildly fantastical, speaks of a fond memory of growing up vacationing in small towns. I know I often did that and some of my fondest child hood memories come from visits to Oriental, NC and Reedsville, VA. Chowder Bay, ME is that kind of town, where everyone remembers the boy’s father from growing up with him and are keen eyed enough to be able to tell who these new kids must be.

With the delightful addition of a plethora of mysteries, an odd man full of fantastic stories, and new surprises around every corner, Salt Water Taffy is the kind of kid’s book that is honest enough to entertain an adult while safe enough for a kid of any age. The back says that it is for kids age 7 up and I’d say that in terms of reading level that is about right, but if you are the kind of parent who likes to read with their kid, then this will work just as well as Bone and Amulet do in that regard. Share it with a kid you know.