Little Monarchs by Jonathan Case. Margaret Ferguson / Holiday House, 2022. 9780823442607. 256pp. My wife Silver bought a signed copy of this book at the ALA conference last year, and she very generically said she loved it but never mentioned it was post-apocalyptic. (The only hint is the ruined building on the cover, which isn’t much of a hint for me.) Then recently I think an author friend of mine and I were talking about graphic novels that didn’t quite fit neatly into an age category for marketing purposes. She mentioned that this one is not quite for kids even though its protagonist, Elvie, is ten years old. What my wife should have said to me was Little Monarchs is Cormac McCarthy’s The Road with science and butterflies and sunshine. The butterflies are part of the answer to surviving on a damaged earth where the sun killed most of humanity. Ellie and her guardian/friend Flora are working to create a vaccine as they also try to find Ellie’s parents. Minor spoilers: there are more hints of post-apocalyptic horribleness in the background than violence, and this isn’t an action movie of a book. My favorite pages are from Ellie’s notebook/diary — they give a lot of insight into both the world and of course what’s happening in her brain. Plus science!

Robo Sapiens: Tales of Tomorrow by Toranosuke Shimada. Translation by Adrienne Beck. Seven Seas, 2021. 9781648275982. 304pp. Publisher’s Rating: Teen (13+) The thirteen chapters in this book (I think it’s a 2-in-1 edition) feel like short stories. Most feature a few recurring autonomous cyber-characters, and the whole holds together as a graphic novel. Talking much about the settings would ruin the book. The first chapter made me think this was going to be a mystery because it features a salvager out to help a super rich, reclusive dude find a robot he lost fifty years ago. The solution to the mystery (which is finished in one chapter) defied my expectations and gave me the delightful sense I had no idea where this manga was going. My favorite recurring character is the robot Onda Kaloko, whose mission is to keep watch over spent nuclear fuel for 250,000 years until it’s safe. But my favorite things about the book are Shimada’s art (it reminds me a bit of Brandon Graham’s King City) and its straightforward page layouts.

Polar Vortex: A Family Memoir by Denise Dorrance. The Experiment, 2024. 9781615199051. 256pp. Dorrance’s graphic memoir opens with her trying to call her elderly mother, who lives alone on a quiet street in Iowa. After an email arrives from an Aging Services rep who went to speak with her mother, saying she didn’t answer the door, Dorrance panics. And that’s good because her mom was on the floor, conscious but confused. Is it possible her mother has dementia? Dorrance hops on a plane in the UK and heads home to find out. Things in Iowa are not great. Her mom is in the hospital and seems super fragile, not to mention forgetful. The city is covered in snow. And Death starts visiting Dorrance to chat about her mom. (It’s probably no surprise that her mother’s health insurance coverage becomes a source of more fear than Death; I laughed out loud when this created what was, for me, the most hilarious moment in the book.) My grandmother had dementia at the end of her life, and Dorrance’s mother’s lost expression as she continued to ask about her missing purse reminded me of the final five years of my grandmother’s life. This book shattered me. There’s a clarity to its art and layouts that make it a stunning example of what comics can do; the story moved backward and forward in time and yet never lost me. I loved the use of art from old postcards, and the ending is perfect.  

Pearl of the Sea by Anthony Silverston, Raffaella Delle Donne, and Willem Samuel. Catylist Press, 2023. 9781946395740. 164pp.. Pearl spends more time in the water than on land, diving for crayfish and abalone, though it’s illegal. (She and her dad need money or they may have to move to the city. This would suck because Pearl is waiting for her mom to return home.) Pearl has also been searching the site of a shipwreck that’s off-limits. It’s there that she first encounters the giant sea creature that she later tries to befriend, and which others are searching for. The large format of this graphic novel allows the art to shine; at half the size I don’t think it would look nearly as good. It’s an especially tween-friendly YA book with lots of beautifully drawn undersea moments that will appeal to readers of all ages; I haven’t liked underwater scenes this much since seeing the scuba diving murder scenes in Jacamon and Matz’s The Killer.

49 Days by Agnes Lee. Arthur A. Levine, 2024. 9781646143757. 352pp. For forty-nine days, Kit roams what I’m going to call the outskirts of the afterlife. (In the Buddhist tradition, this is the period between death and rebirth, according to the text on the inside flap of the book.) Flashbacks show her and her umma and her siblings, and include them making kimchi and eating it fresh. There are also bits of the family and her friend Kevin mourning her passing. It’s unclear if Kit knows she’s dead or not for much of the book. This is a wonderful graphic novel and one of the saddest books I’ve enjoyed. Part of the reason it works is that the illustrations and page layouts are super simple, and I read it so quickly I was able to just let it wash over me. And then I went back to admire Lee’s art and the way the story is put together.  

Feeding Ghosts: A Graphic Memoir by Tessa Hulls. MCD, 2024.9780374601652. 386pp. Tessa Hulls’ Chinese grandmother lived with her family when she was growing up. Her grandmother had been a journalist, had escaped communist Shanghai to Hong Kong with Hulls’ mother, and had written a best-selling memoir. She had also, as Hulls explains and shows, lost her mind. This is a memoir about Tessa Hulls trying to make sense of her family’s story, about trying to connect not just with her grandmother and her mother but with her own feelings as well. It takes place in the past, exploring history and her mother’s and grandmother’s lives, and also in the present, where Hulls digs in and tries to understand it all. It’s difficult to summarize the level of reflection and research present in these pages, not to mention the amazing art. I absolutely loved it, and it deserves all of the attention it’s been getting in Seattle bookstores. I don’t think I’ve ever read a graphic novel as slowly as I read Feeding Ghosts; I’d sit down in the evening and read ten pages and some moment would just destroy me. I had to go wash the dishes or straighten the house to reflect on Hulls and her family, especially about her place in it and the way she responded to trauma. When you pick up this book you should plan to spend some time with it. It’s awesome, and reading it will demand as much from you as you’re able to give it.

The Butcher of the Forest by Premee Mohammed. Tor.com, 2024. 9781250881786. 160pp. Veris Thorn has been summoned by the Tyrant to his great castle. One of his soldiers throws her to her knees before the throne, where the Tyrant drinks from a cup made from a skull. She’s not sure what he wants. He knows she’s the woman who went into the cursed woods and returned with a missing child. He tells her she will go into the woods to recover his children. They have been gone for two hours. Their trail led to the edge of the woods. The guards who went in after them disappeared; their dogs returned bloody. Because of the nature of the woods, Veris has only a day to get the children back. The Tyrant offers her no reward; if she fails her family will be killed and her village destroyed. Worse than merely destroyed. This book is about Veris Thorn’s desperate, hurried quest into the woods, a magical realm with its own unique threats and rules. And it’s the best novella I’ve read since Nicola Griffith’s Spear. Worth noting: I also loved Mohammed’s The Annual Migration of Clouds, and there’s a follow-up novella coming out soon, We Speak Through the Mountain.

Joy Ride: A Bike Odyssey from Alaska to Argentina by Kristen Jokinen. Introduction by Cheryl Strayed. Hawthorne Books & Literary Arts, 2023. 9780998825755. 268pp. With the outlines of a plan and a budget of $800 a month, Kristen Jokinen and her husband Ville set off from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, on their way to Bahia Lapataia in Argentina, the end of Highway Three “just past” (easy for me to say) Ushuaia, Argentina. Like me you may assume the Jokinens were bike people before the start of their journey. They were not! And they’re not planners, at least not much past which road they’re taking the next day. I admire that almost as much as their ability to reach out to others for help, whether it’s for a place to camp, a much-needed spare part, or medical care. (Worth noting: The trip is difficult in all of the ways you can imagine and some you probably can’t, but the specifics are harrowing and make for a great read. Plus it’s kind of a book about how to be an awesome spouse, too.) Mostly this book left me with the sense that folks all over the world are much kinder to each other and even to (or especially to) strangers in their midst, which I really need to feel right now. I’m not one to read many books about travel, but for me this is one of my favorites, right up there with Casey Scieszka and Steven Weinberg’s To Timbuktu. I’ve already given a copy as a gift and I plan to buy several more. The Jokinens were guests on Episode 73 of the Labyrinths with Amanda Knox podcast, which I highly recommend listening to if you’re on the fence about reading this.

Winnie-The-Pooh by Travis Dandro, based on the work of A.A. Milne and illustrations by E. H. Shepard. Drawn & Quarterly, 2024. 9781770466968. 248pp. This large format hardcover graphic novel adaptation of the original Winnie-The-Pooh book. It’s fun and beautiful and uses the graphic novel format to expand the humor and characterizations of the original. I’m glad D&Q published this at a size larger than most kids’ graphic novels but not too big to fit on my shelf. If you’re one of those folks wondering how closely these stories are to the original, I can only say that I looked into that at the beginning of the book, as Pooh tries to use a balloon to get honey from some bees. I went back and forth between a newer edition of the original and Dando’s book (they matched up closely) until Dando’s version demanded my complete attention. If I didn’t know better, you might have a hard time convincing me this isn’t the original. Note: Eyore and others you remember are here, but there’s no Tigger. He didn’t appear until Milne’s sequel, The House At Pooh Corner, which I hope Dando is adapting as I type this.

Slider by Pete Hautman. Candlewick, 2018. 9781536204322. 278pp. plus a discussion guide. David did something idiotic with his mother’s credit card, without permission, and before she finds out he needs lots of money to take care of the problem. His one hope: winning the Super Pigorino Bowl pizza-eating contest. He can put away a lot of pizza, so he has a chance. But standing in his way is at least one professional eater, plus the fact that David can’t afford the entry fee. His friends HeyMan and Cyn (who seem to be becoming more than friends) help with the latter. Getting his parents to agree to let him compete is harder, but the solution to that has something to do with his brother, Mal, whose only word is, “Okay.” The book is fun because of David’s competitive eating obsession, his flaws, and his desire to fix things; the whole situation is constantly about to blow up in his face. I’m passing this book to a middle schooler who shares my sense of humor. Reading this was a little emotional for me — when I opened it, I realized I’ve been avoiding Slider since my friend and fellow Unshelved Book Club reviewer Dan Ritchie died years ago. We both enjoyed Hautman’s books, and I remember talking to Dan about several. I wish I was reading a review of Slider by Dan instead of writing one myself.