Peter & Max

If you haven't read Bill Willingham's Fables series and you like to read graphic novels, I highly suggest you get on it. Willingham created a world within our world where the characters from folk tales live, protected from "mundies" like you and me by spells that keep normal folks unaware of their New York City block or upstate farm. These characters are in our "mundane" world because they have fled a powerful enemy who has conquered their home worlds.

While I highly recommend the Fables graphic novels, I can easily recommend Willingham's Fables-based novel Peter & Max to those who refuse to read graphic novels, as well as fans of the series. Willingham has provided a summary of the backstory not only for those unfamiliar with Fables, but also to root this tale within the chronology of the Fables series.

The main story here is that of Peter and Max Piper, brothers of a musical family whose lives take different paths. The story is nonstop and engaging--at no time did I find a good place to stop reading as I would inevitably read the first few lines of a new chapter (to determine whether the story was flashing back to Peter's youth in enemy-occupied Hamelin where he struggled to make his way as a thief, or the present in which Peter's final confrontation with his brother loomed ever closer) and get hooked into reading the whole thing. Willingham is a great storyteller with a unique imagination, and reading Peter & Max would be enjoyable to any fan of light fantasy or folk tale reimaginings.