Big Nate is a series of books and a syndicated comic written and illustrated by Lincoln Pierce. The latest to hit the bookshelves is Big Nate is on a roll. Sample spread after the jump. – Thansk to Darren Clum for the tip

My sons are obsessed with Star Wars. My eldest came home from the book fair with Darth Paper Strikes Back by Tom Angleberger. It’s in the vein of Diary of a Wimpy Kid (You’re familiar with the genre, right?) I’ve been reading a little bit of it each night to him, and as far as kids books go it’s pretty good. One of the protagonists is an antisocial kid with an origami Yoda finger puppet who dispenses sage advice to the middle school kids. His nemesis is an annoying kid who makes a Darth Vader origami finger puppet who is not content to destroy his paper foe alone, he tries to get the other kid kicked out of school. It’s irreverently amusing, and filled with references to movie dialogue and scenes. It also has illustrations mixed throughout and scribbled in the margins, which is why we’re here. One scene takes place in a skate park. The illustration isn’t really about the story, it’s meant to look as if the storyteller was inspired to doodle in the book after reliving the details. Poor R2 D2 is on rollerblades, while Jabba the Hut has multiple boards. He would have fit better on…

Two groups of dinosaurs in two Pacific Northwest cities are trying to scrape up enough DNA to clone respective skate facilities back from the dead. In Portland, our own GVK is trying to spearhead a grass roots movement to get a vert ramp built in Portland. Meanwhile, there’s a freestyle/flatground enthusiast in Seattle who is trying to get a wide, smooth, flat surface for practicing some sort of discipline known as “freestyle slalom.” So here is the petri dish, leave your lab results in the comments. The image for this post? It’s a Mark Teague illustration from a Jane Yolen children’s book titled How Do Dinosaurs Play With Their Friends?

From the book How it Works: The Human Body, published in 1997, but that board is more like 1987. Enlarge-o-rama.

This spread is from the 1977 Theodor Seuss Geisel book titled Please Try to Remember the First of Octember, written under the pen name of Theo LeSeig, as in the case of all the children’s books he wrote but others illustrated. It seems he saved the Dr Seuss name for books that he both wrote and illustrated. Notice that LeSieg spelled backwards is… Geisel. What a clever man, if I do say so, er, uhmmm, myself. Enlarge-o-rama.

As a kid I always loved Richard Scarry’s books. Something about those chunky little anthropomorphized animals with their stubby arms really appealed to me. It might have been the detailed surroundings of Busytown or the inherent sense of humor in the illustrations. Now I dig reading these to my kids. This panel here is from a board book called “Huckle’s Opposites,” and it features one of my favorite characters, good old Lowly Worm. He’s only got one shoe, yet he still manages to ride a skateboard. He may push mongo, but his skateboard is stylish. Hang on, how does he push at all? Is that a Chuck Taylor? You can investigate the answers yourself by picking up your own copy from the dollar bins at Target.