Lowriders in Space, is about a group of friends building a car in Space. This book could be used in a classroom to showcase the different parts of outer space.

I just loved this!! Clever and gorgeous! ( )

The book is about a group of friends who enter a car competition to save up for their own garage. They go on a fun adventure through customizing their car and eventually winning the car competition. The book is a graphic novel and I loved the style of images that were used. I would recommend this book for 4th through 7th graders. ( )

What a great and unique look at car culture from the southern states. Car culture is just like any other culture. It varies by location. This book was a great way to introduce the “low and slow” car culture and used a really fun adventure as a way to do it. The illustrations were so unique, I loved the inclusion of Spanish words and sayings. It felt authentic and not pushed. Plus the back matter where the author gives a very brief history of low riders and ideas that went into this book is just the icing on the cake. I cannot wait for book 2 to come out. ( )

I don't, I've been having a contrarian spate lately, I guess, where all these critically acclaimed graphic novel have been falling flat for me (which is crazy! I love graphic novels! Even hokey ones! Even lame ones!). My co-worker really talked up Lowriders in Space to me, and I was excited to read it, but it really felt a little bit... off to me.

I went into it with no idea what to expect, besides a lowrider going into space obviously. I liked the character designs (especially Lupe Impala and Elirio Malaria [and I love their names!], but that's about all. The weird, almost sepia-toned washed out color scheme, the ridiculousness of constructing their lowrider out of space parts (which, I know it's a graphic novel, but at least give the steering wheel made out of stars a column to attach it to the car! Or roll up the windows to explain how they can breathe! Or personify all the constellations rather than some of them! etc.), and, most of all, the really annoying, almost patronizing inclusion of Spanish.

Now, maybe this is Chicano culture rather than Hispanic culture, which is what I grew up in, but the Spanglish the characters speak just feels really inauthentic to me. Yes, you're going to pepper in some Spanish words like amigos or pinata or whatever, but you're much more likely to go sentence by sentence rather than word by word. Reading this, it really feels like Camper took a very cut-and-dry, "educational" approach to Chicano/Hispanic culture rather than attempting to just depict it realistically. I understand that some of the words needed definitions, especially for younger readers, but the constant inclusion of them even when context rendered it necessary was particularly jarring (do kids really need to have a definition separately listed for amigos and homes when the sentences is "mis homes! Let's go!"? [not a specific example, but you get the idea]).

I really think this would have been better suited written rather than just illustrated by someone closer to Mexican culture, or maybe a closer collaboration. ( )