As much as I am very grateful to be in grad school, I really missed getting to read for fun and so when I came home, I promised myself I could have an unfettered bookstore shopping trip. The result was a basket of so many books that the checkout guy said “Wow,” and a good proportion of those were middle grade graphic novels, because I love them.
Lunar Boy is a sweet coming of age story that follows Indu. He was found on the moon by his mother and has spent the majority of his life on a small space station. Now his mother is getting married and they have to move to New Earth. Indu has a really rough time with the move, with his new older stepbrother giving him the cold shoulder and the kids at school making him feel dumb and isolated. However, as the book progresses, Indu has to learn that giving people and his new life a chance could work out. I really liked this one, with the themes of queerness and transness nicely blended in throughout, as well as dealing with adoption, change, and grief. There was a lot in here, but it never felt too much and the story worked very well. Definitely recommended.
How It All Ends was another standout for me. I loved Emma Hunsinger’s piece for the New Yorker about drawing horses and realizing she was gay, so I was thrilled to see she had done a graphic novel. In How It All Ends, Tara is skipped a grade from seventh to eighth grade and has to deal with being in high school sooner than she had expected. Tara feels out of place and too young for high school, and she has to grapple with growing up sooner than she expected to. Hunsinger does a great job of capturing the moment when people are starting to fall in love while you still want to play, and the tension between the two. She also does a great job of showing the importance of family and friends, as well as how conflicts can be resolved in a way that leads to growth. This felt really realistic and meaningful, and her art is expressive. I loved this.
Tiffany’s Griffon follows Marnie, who is a lonely nerd who finds solace in her favorite fantasy series, Griffon Riders. The other kids make fun of her and she responds with anger and cynicism, so when the more popular Tiffany starts being nice to her, she doesn’t trust it at all. A fairy from Griffon Riders shows up and tells Marnie that she is the Chosen One and is going to get her own griffon to help save the world of the books. However, the griffon is meant for Tiffany, which Marnie makes the choice to hide and pretend that it was meant for her instead. She and Tiffany start to be friends and Marnie begins to doubt her choice to hide the truth. The girls have to figure out how to resolve things and save the world of the books. I thought that the plot was a bit too smoothly resolved, but overall I still really liked this and thought the message of friendship and honesty, as well as the power of creativity, was well conveyed.
Plain Jane and the Mermaid is by Vera Brosgol, who is one of my favorite creators. She continues to be great with this book. Jane’s parents have died and left everything to her terrible cousin, unless she manages to get married. However, everyone in the village is always body shaming her and calling her ugly, so she has no self-esteem. She asks the most handsome young man in the village to marry her simply as a marriage of convenience, but after he agrees he gets kidnapped by mermaids. Jane must go to the bottom of the sea to rescue him, or else lose her home. I appreciated the fast pace of the adventure and the message of bolstering one’s self-esteem and acceptance. This was a fun take on traditional fairytales. In the additional material, Brosgol describes how she storyboards her work and I found that really interesting.
Sink or Swim is set in the same universe as Just Roll With It!, and has a similar story of dealing with mental health as a middle schooler. I really like this series and think they are very important in terms of showing how compassion and trusting safe adults to help when things get too hard. I feel like the message of asking for help from adults who are trustworthy is sometimes overlooked in books aimed at this age group. In Sink or Swim, Ty is recovering from the broken arm that derailed his swim team season, and he is grappling with the way his body has changed while he couldn’t swim, as well as his distance from his friends. Everyone expects him to get back in the water once his cast comes off, but his fear about swimming gets bigger and bigger, while he also has to try to deal with his shame about pulling back from his friends. There is a lot going on here and a bunch of characters, but the book does a great job of balancing everything and getting across a strong, positive message. It’s always a treat to see queer characters having a nice, happy time where everyone accepts them as well!
Beetle and the Hollowbones is a fantasy (this one skews more YA than MG, probably) in which Beetle, a young goblin, has to help save her friend Blob Ghost from being trapped in the local mall. Beetle also has to deal with wanting to be a sorcerer when her grandma only wants her to learn goblin magic well. Her old friend, Kat, reappears and seems to have everything Beetle wants — a sorcery apprenticeship, the approval of her aunt, confidence — but as they get to know each other again, Beetle realizes that Kat is in a hard position and that Blob Ghost is in danger because of it. I found this to be a nice surprise, as the art was wonderful and the arc of the story worked really well for me. I love magical realms and this had a lot of magic, as well as good life lessons about standing up to dangerous adults and helping your friends.
