Alison Dare, Little Miss Adventures

Alison Dare is not your average twelve-year-old. She's the daughter of a world-famous archaeologist...and a superhero called the Blue Scarab. On top of that, her uncle is an international superspy. So the three adventures in this delightful graphic novel are going to be over-the-top. The first adventure is Alison Dare and the Arabian Knights, in which a bored Alison traveling with her mother finds a genie. Her first wish? To bring her friends/sidekicks Wendy and Dot to liven up the dull desert. As things always go with genies, the girls' wishes don't end up exactly as they had planned. In the second, Alison Dare and the Secret of the Blue Scarab, we learn more about Alison's family, including how her parents met and how a mild-mannered librarian becomes the Blue Scarab. In the third, Alison Dare and the Mummy Child, Alison helps her mother when her arch-nemesis Baron von Baron comes to steal a mummy child from the museum.

These stories were a quick read, but so much fun, I'd look for more. In fact, a second volume, Alison Dare, The Heart of the Maiden, is available, and sounds like a fun summer read. I'd recommend Alison's adventures to graphic novel fans, fans of Indiana Jones or Lara Croft, and to reluctant readers who would be drawn in by a spunky heroine in over-the-top adventures.

Source disclosure (hi, FTC!): I received a copy of this book from the publisher through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program.