Stars: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Perfect for fans of: John Patrick Green

When I heard about Agent Moose I was really excited – my class are big fans of Investigators and this series sounded like a perfect read for them to move onto. I wasn’t disappointed!

Agent Moose has solved 99 cases and wants to solve his 100th so he can be one of the top agents at Woodland HQ. With the help of Owlfred, he is given his next case: to recover a kidnapped witness, Terrance Turtle. Before doing so, he must reluctantly visit the party of another agent, Camo Chameleon, whose 100th case Terrance was the witness for. However, when Agent Moose arrives at the scene of the crime, not everything is as it seems…

In this funny, adventure-filled graphic novel, children will be laughing out loud at the antics of the agents. To tell us more, I was lucky enough to have a Q&A with artist Jess Bradley about creating these fabulous characters.

1) How do you convey the personality of the character through your illustrations? 

Exaggerated body language is always a great way to convey personality; I think years of drawing and creating characters gives you a good idea of how to make a character look interesting on the page! Animal characters are especially interesting to draw because you can always bring some of their animal traits into their personality. 

2) Which was the most difficult section for you to illustrate (without giving any spoilers!)?

Any panels or pages with lots of characters on are always a challenge! You have to remember where everyone is in relation to each other and make sure that the story telling remains smooth. With comics and graphic novels, speech bubble placement and order of reading is very important so you have to think about that when illustrating a comic page.

3) How much discussion is there between you and Mo when creating Agent Moose as an illustration? 

Well, everything I draw also goes to an art director (very clever people who know how to make books work and read clearly) and Mo so there’s always a bit of feedback from a couple of people. All of the characters designs were given the thumbs up from Mo or if she wanted something else, I would rejig the designs. I’m very lucky in that Mo liked about 99% of what I drew!

4) How long did Agent Moose take you to create?

He went through a couple of different sketch phases but mainly to make him look more dapper and bigger! I would say there was a good few hours of different doodles and sketches involved in getting his basic look down but that’s the fun part about a project like this. I love designing characters!

5) Do you have a favourite character? 

I LOVE drawing Owlfred! He’s a very expressive character and so much fun to draw. I particularly like making his wings work as hands when he’s holding things!

6) Why are graphic novels important for children?

I think as well as maybe helping a lot of struggling readers to grow more confident with their reading, having word and image together just adds so much to a reader’s experience. They can be very inspiring and there’s just so much possibility in terms of narrative and visual excitement.

7) What can we expect to see next from you?

I’m working on several books at the moment; some science reference comics and also my graphic novel series, Super Dweeb! I’m always writing and drawing comics for The Phoenix and The Beano every week which I would recommend to anyone who has enjoyed Agent Moose: Lots of amazing stories and art by a lot of very talented writers and artists!

Agent Moose by Mo O’Hara and Jess Bradley is out now!

This is already a favourite among my class – if you’d like a copy for your own, find it here.

I’m delighted to announce that this review has been shared by Twinkl! For even more great recommendations, make sure to visit their TBR blog

Emily x

📚 Book gifted by publisher