Lumberjanes, a graphic novel, was pitted against Symphony for the City of the Dead, a nonfiction novel, in the first round of the mighty smackdown.

Neither of the two books were particularly great. The adult readers in our group found that Symphony for the City of the Dead shed light on a disturbing and yet important piece of history. The teen readers in our group found this book drab, dreary, and dull.  The teens found themselves struggling to not put the book down a few chapters in and were looking at page numbers as they read, hoping they would be closer to the end. We all agreed that this book appears to be better suited to adults unless the reader was exceptionally passionate about Leningrad, music, or WWII.

Lumberjanes was not great, either. Although it was a tad childish and had a 'flat' plot line, Lumberjanes had some charming characters and a couple high points. It wasn't boring to the point that the reader could barely stumble past a few sentences, but it wasn't so exciting that we couldn't put it down. "Okay" is probably the best word to describe this book.

The book we believe should move on is Lumberjanes because we believe at least more readers will  attempt to read this book.

Submitted by Kevin and Maureen (with teen readers of Cara and Laine)