Characters: Martin
Fiction Review: The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar
Posted on May 15, 2025 at 7:21 am by Gene Ambaum
The River Has Roots by Amal El-Mohtar. Tordotcom, 2025. 9781250341082. 134p. (The main novella ends on page 99, and the rest of the book contains the short story “John Hollowback and the Witch” (a preview of an upcoming collection) plus a few pages of acknowledgements.)
I’m such a huge fan of the book El-Mohtar co-wrote with Max Gladstone, This Is How You Lose The Time War, that I don’t think I’ll ever pass up the chance to read her fiction.
This novella involves a family that tends to magical Willow trees which grow along a river that flows from Faerie to our world. The family’s two daughters love singing to the trees and each other. One of them has a lover from Faerie who wants to offer a fair trade for her songs. But she also has a suitor from our world whose manners and intentions are far from lovely.
There are illustrations by Kathleen Neeley throughout, and the story went places that I didn’t expect.
This is up there with Nicola Griffith’s Spear and Premee Mohamed’s The Annual Migration of Clouds as one of my favorite novellas.
Tags No Comments - Read MoreGraphic Novel Review: The Racc Pack by Stephanie Cooke, Art by Whitney Gardner
Posted on May 13, 2025 at 6:30 am by Gene Ambaum
The Racc Pack by Stephanie Cooke, Art by Whitney Gardner. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2024. 9781665914932. 184pp.
I’ve been a fan of Gardner’s work since reading her YA vampire graphic novel, Fake Blood. And I had just heard 99% Invisible’s Raccoon Resistance episode, about Toronto’s attempts to make its trash cans raccoon-proof. Both these facts plus the book’s tag-line — “live fast, eat trash” — pretty much guaranteed that I was going to pick it up.
Raccoons Dusty (the brains) and ReRe (the muscle), plus their possum friend Scraps (the gadget guy), do their best work at night, going through people’s trash. But when the mayor of Toronto invests in raccoon-proof garbage cans…well, it’s not much of a challenge. When they find a market that’s throwing out so much “ugly” food they decide to try to push the place’s bin to their house, but the whole plan gets them into more trouble than ever. Luckily, a cat named JB comes to the rescue. She seems to want to help them come up with a plan to steal the dumpster, too. But it’s unclear what she’s going to get out of that.
There’s a madcap sense of humor running through this dumpster-diving story, and Gardner’s illustrations really add to the heist as “Mission Impawssible” gets underway.
A sequel to this book was just in January.
More Picture Books!
Posted on May 8, 2025 at 6:21 am by Gene Ambaum
Millie Fleur’s Poison Garden by Christy Mandin. Orchard Books, 2024. 9781339023274.
Millie Fleur Le Fae and her mom move to a spooky old house in Garden Glen. She plants a garden to make it feel like home. Her plants are weird, and the local garden club deems it unacceptable. She ignores their objections and invites her classmates to visit her garden. (Minor spoiler: this changes Garden Glen, where everything is the same, forever.)
Contains notes at the end about “Snapdragons & Spider Plants” plus a real poisonous garden in Alnwick, Northumberland, in England.
Vulture View by April Pulley Sayre, illustrated by Steve Jenkins. Beach Lane Books, 2007. 9781665952194.
I love turkey vultures, and I’m in favor of any picture books that show they love to eat stinky, rotting animals. In this one, Jenkins manages to make even rotting carcasses beautiful. The book is told in verse, and there’s a “Get To Know Vultures” section at the end that’s full of facts.
Every Monday Mabel by Jashar Awan. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2025. 9781665938150.
Monday is Mabel’s favorite day of the week. Every day she grabs a chair and some cereal and goes to wait at the top of her driveway to see the best thing in the world. Minor spoiler: It’s the garbage truck! (There’s a garbage truck on the front and back of the book, so it’s not much of a spoiler; plus I need to tell you this so you can read it to the young garbage truck fan in your life.) Awan’s art has a classic feel, and the book’s pacing is epic — there’s a nice build-up to the garbage truck reveal that I’m sure will have a fun payoff, even with re-readings.
Picture Books!
Posted on May 6, 2025 at 6:22 am by Gene Ambaum
The Slightly Spooky Tale of Fox and Mole by Cecilia Heikkila. Translated by Polly Lawson. Floris Books, 2025. 9781782509530.
Fox and Mole are alone in the autumn. Fox made cookies and jam to get him through the winter. Mole spent the summer having fun instead of preparing for the winter but is happy to help himself to Fox’s food and tea during his visits. Soon Fox has had too much of Mole’s selfishness, and Fox’s food is completely gone. Fox transforms into something hungry and scary and heads to Mole’s house. (Minor spoiler: sharing and storytelling help Mole save himself (and his friend).)
Heikkila’s art makes this one of the most striking picture books I’ve seen in a while.
Drawn Onward words by Daniel Nayeri, pictures by Matt Rockefeller. HarperAlley, 2024. 9780063277168.
This is a tale of grief and love, a palindrome of a story told with a minimum of words. It involves a quest in a fantasy world that seems terrifying at first but is ultimately revealed to be filled with beauty, love, and friendship. It’s a stunning achievement.
The Big Book of Butts by Eva Manzano and Emilio Urberuaga. NubeOcho, 2023. 9788419607218.
This book covers little-known “facts” about our butts (they love getting presents) as well as actual facts, like their development about 540 million years ago and why humans have such big ones. Most of the book explores the butts of the animal kingdom including their colors, the language of butts, the feel of butts (yaks have among the hairiest), the smell of butts, and two of the strangest of all, which belong to caterpillars and sea cucumbers.
This is everything I hope for in a nonfiction picture book!
Graphic Novel Review: Optometry by Xiang Yata
Posted on May 1, 2025 at 7:45 am by Gene Ambaum
Optometry by Xiang Yata. Translated by Jerrica Meng, Fish Wang, & Xiang Yata. Driftwood Press, 2023. 97819490065244.
A young woman walks into an optometrist’s office to get a pair of glasses, and he tests her eyes by showing her a series of images, asking what she sees and if it’s clear. This is the start of a surreal, illusive journey that moves through different styles of comics and various media. It reminded me of Alice in Wonderland and Grant Morrison’s most meta comics. It’s beautiful, delightful, and everything about it wowed me.
Included in the back is a conversation with Yata where she discusses the book’s origin and why took her ten years to make.
Worth noting: I continue to fall in love with amazing Table of Contents pages, and this has one of the best. I’ve scanned it to include with the review, so take a look.
Graphic Novel Review: Petit (The Ogre Gods Book One) by Hubert and Bertrand Gatignol
Posted on April 29, 2025 at 5:49 am by Gene Ambaum
Petit (The Ogre Gods Book One) by Hubert, design and artwork by Bertrand Gatignol. Translation by Jeremy Melloul. Lion Forge, 2018. 9781942367772. 176pp.
I loved Hubert’s fantasy graphic novel Darkly She Goes (with art by Vincent Mallie), so when I saw this on the shelf at the Seattle Public Library I picked it up.
It begins with the giant ogre queen unexpectedly giving birth to a human-sized baby at a dinner party, where the ogres aren’t just being served by humans, they’re eating them, too. The king orders her to kill her child because it’s an aberration; the queen instead gives the child to the king’s kind aunt, Desdée, who loves humans, to raise in secret. (The ogres are becoming smaller and less noble with each generation; Petit’s mother thinks his destiny is to mate with humans and save the line of ruling ogres. She may be right.)
This is a strange book. There’s cannibalism, violence, sex, giants (of course), and pages of text at the beginning of each chapter that tell a character’s backstory. It’s all held together by Gatignol’s black and white art, with its solid blacks and the way he uses grays and white to add texture and depth.
Graphic Novel Review: The Jellyfish by Boum
Posted on April 24, 2025 at 6:23 am by Gene Ambaum
The Jellyfish by Boum. Translated by Helge Dascher and Robin Lang. Pow Pow, 2024. 9782925114307. 228pp.
Odette Biset-Yu has a jellyfish in their left eye. Between their bookstore job, hanging with their rabbit, and meeting friends, it’s easy to ignore. But soon there are two jellyfish, and then even more appear.
This is a story of love and friendship that centers around Odette finding out (minor spoiler) that she’s going blind. The bookstore scenes will remind you of library life.
Like all my favorite Pow Pow books the cover looks and feels lke a watercolor painting, and the city of Montreal is a character in the book. It’s told in subtle shades of black and white, and though it’s fictional it reads like a graphic autobiography.
Picture Books!
Posted on April 22, 2025 at 6:30 am by Gene Ambaum
Roy Is Not A Dog by Esmé Shapiro and Daniel Newell Kaufman. Tundra, 2024. 9780735265967.
Weasel believes he knows all the people on his paper route except Roy, who is a bit mysterious. After observing Roy a bit, Weasel concludes he’s a dog, but he’s unable to convince his friend Pam Pam. So Weasel sets out to get proof.
Mr. Lepron’s Mystery Soup by Giovanna Zoboli & Mariachiara Di Giorgio. English translation by Denise Muir. Candlewick, 2024. 9781536233391.
After Mr. Lepron and his family gather the vegetables he loves, he makes a soup so amazing that it becomes famous. So many people want his soup that Mr. Lepron opens a factory and starts shipping it around the world. And that continues for a while until things go terribly wrong because of the soup’s secret ingredient. (It’s so secret even Mr. Lepron doesn’t seem to understand what it is.)
Di Giorgio’s illustrations are beautiful, often unexpected, and delightful even in the book’s sadder moments.
Ohchungdang Candy by Jung-soon Go. Translated by Aerin Park. Levine Querido, 2025. 9781646145140. 128pp.
This is author/illustrator Jung-soon Go’s book about her grandparents, two Korean war orphans who made a life together in a small South Korean town. Go spent every school break with them, and had a special bond with her playful, friendly grandfather. Her grandmother had a more reserved personality, but she saw he grandparents being sweet to one another. Jung-soon’s grandpa’s cancer diagnosis is painful, as is the way he quickly shrinks and stops smiling. When he’s gone her grandmother withdraws even more from the world, and then she’s diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.
I’ve never read a picture book like this — it’s such a special love letter to the author’s grandparents. It won a much-deserved Special Prize at the 2023 Korean Picture Book Awards.
Graphic Novel Review: Goodbye, Eri by Tatsuki Fujimoto
Posted on April 17, 2025 at 6:44 am by Gene Ambaum
Goodbye, Eri by Tatsuki Fujimoto. Translation by Amanda Haley. Viz, 2023. 9781974738939. 200pp. Publisher’s Rating T+ / Older Teen.
Yuta, a middle school student with a new cell phone, starts shooting video footage of his mom at her request. When she wants him to film her dying breath, he runs away. He turns the footage of her into a movie that’s poorly received, and then, after he decides to commit suicide, he films a final message saying goodbye. But on the roof of the hospital he’s about to jump from, he meets Eri. She takes him to an abandoned building and makes him watch movies because she wants him to make a new movie. (It just gets weirder and more meta from there.)
This is a strange manga; it was hard to tell fact from fiction in the storyline but in the best possible way. Was I watching the movie? Was I seeing raw footage being filmed? Was this just Yuta’s life? Totally enjoyable, and complete in one volume.
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Graphic Novel Review: Hirayasumi Volume 1 by Keigo Shinzo
Posted on April 15, 2025 at 6:23 am by Gene Ambaum
Hirayasumi Volume 1 by Keigo Shinzo. Translation by Jan Mitsuko Cash. Viz, 2024. 9781974746910. 189pp. Publisher’s Rating T / Teen.
Twenty-nine-year-old Hiroto Ikuta works part-time at a fishing pond. He acts super dorky when talking to attractive women his own age, but has no problem chatting with old ladies. This helps him become friendly with his cranky older neighbor, who used to be a school lunch lady. She makes him dinner every Monday and Thursday. Then the day after they share a meal she dies and leaves her house to Hiroto.
Three months later, an eighteen-year-old distant cousin of Hiroto’s, Natsume Kobayashi, moves in with him when she begins attending art school in Tokyo. She’s awkward and is having trouble making friends. She’s also secretly hoping to become a manga artist.
This first volume is charming, and it has an honest awkwardness that I really enjoyed. (From the pitch I was hoping it was something like Yotsuba&!; it’s not, but I’m far from disappointed.) I’ve already ordered the next three volumes in the series from my local library.
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