I really didn’t want to mention this, but the women characters need work here. Fathers trying to find a way to communicate and bond with their sons. Strong father and son messages color and fill these pages. Magic and trouble! Father and son twist, bend, and build people out of the cardboard. And magic is just what he finds in a cardboard box. Add no job, financial woes, bully troubles, and a birthday-well these guys have their hands full! Cam’s father needs a miracle or a bit of magic to afford a gift for his son’s birthday. Loneliness, grief, and fear show up throughout the story in heartbreaking quiet ways and not so subtle ways. Both trying to find a way to live without Cam’s mother.

Įvery page in Doug TenNapel’s Cardboard pops to life with color, action, imagination, and heart!Ĭam and his Dad are going through a rough time. If you're looking for ambient music that's perfect for reading fantasy, horror, sci-fi, comics, manga and other books like this one, then be sure to check out my YouTube Channel called Nightmarish Compositions. Traditional stories that pay homage to the past without changing much can be enjoyable in their own right. Everything else played out like a standard children’s animated movie.Įven with its flaws, I enjoyed the 90's/early 2000's animated nostalgia vibe it delivered. The father-son bond that Cam shares with his dad and the unraveling backstory of Marcus were the highlights of the narrative for me.

It follows a lot of familiar tropes and some of the characters fall short, most notably the love interest of Cam's dad and some of the supporting cast. This was a good and imaginative story, but it all felt very straightforward and by the numbers. Cam entertains himself by building a legion of quirky cardboard friends that talk to him and join him on adventures, but when the neighborhood bully Marcus catches wind of the magical box, he schemes up more malicious purposes for what the box could be used for. It’s a magic box that creates life from whatever shape you mold from its pieces. This is no ordinary cardboard box, however. It captures the vibe of a classic Pixar film with a touching story of family bonding through hard times and a good bully redemption story in the midst of self-made conflict.Ĭam’s struggling dad who works as a carpenter brings a cardboard box home for his birthday because he couldn’t afford anything of value, definitely not the birthday present he was expecting. Cardboard feels like a nice mashup of Toy Story, Fairly Odd Parents and a little bit of Invader Zim.

Cardboard tennapel