The Horizon Volume 1 by JH. Translation by Ultramedia. Ize Press, 2023. 9798400900297. 376pp. This is a post-apocalyptic graphic novel, but it’s never quite clear what the apocalypse is. There are dead bodies everywhere on some pages, and the art is nearly black and white, so it’s a bit less gory than it might otherwise look. But when the wide-eyed little boy protagonist finds his mother’s body, and then tries to gather her brains up and put them back into her head, that put my imagination into overdrive. And then he concludes that the value of life is just an illusion, and starts to walk through a ruined city, past more bodies and abandoned military vehicles and out into the county. He meets a little girl, and it becomes clear whatever violence they’ve both survived is still happening as bombs fall and people flee. Together they join the crowd (and eventually escape it). And from then on they travel together, taking care of each other. I have no idea where this series is going, but I can’t wait to read Volume 2. Thanks to Mark de Vera who was at the Yen Press / Ize Press / JY booth at ALA Annual, and who booktalked this series to my wife and me and then gave her the first book. If you’re at a library conference and have a chance to talk to Mark about comics, do it — he always knows about graphic novels I want to read.

¡Ay, Mija!: My Bilingual Summer in Mexico by Christine Suggs. Little, Brown and Company, 2023. 9780316591966. 328pp. Includes an Epilogue full of photos of Suggs and her family and Chiquito “the most spoiled cat in the world.” This is a graphic memoir of Suggs’ visit to Mexico to see her grandparents (her Mamá and Papá) and tia, Mary, in Mexico during the summer after tenth grade. Her basic Spanish language skills are a source of stress, as is the fact that she looks a bit different from her family (her father is a white American dude her mom met while working at the US Embassy there as a translator). Even when it’s hard for her to follow conversations (she struggles for a while, then improves) there’s so much love (except from Chiquito the cat sometimes) that I was sure everything was going to be okay. Suggs also worries about her weight a bit, though the joy of food (especially bread!) and talking about food and eating throughout is very upbeat. Worth noting: Suggs’ tia Paty, who went to the US to help take care of her, can’t return to Mexico to visit her parents because of her immigration status. Suggs spends some time thinking about this and the fact that her grandparents can’t afford to visit the US, plus remembers lots of moments from past visits and her childhood. This is a beautiful book about a teen who always wanted to be an artist and a family story that will appeal to lots of older elementary and middle school students.

Daughters of Snow & Cinders by Núria Tamarit. Translated by Jenna Allen. Fantagraphics, 2023. 9781683967569. 212pp. This book stands out on graphic novel shelves; it has so much shelf appeal that I’ve picked it up over and over and flipped through it to look at the colors and drawings. The pages that show the northern lights were my favorites before I started reading it. Men are searching for gold, and two women caught up in that search are the center of the book. Joanna is looking for gold herself; she trades everything she has for supplies and a chance to join an expedition. After she’s rejected because she’s a woman, she meets Tala, who tells her about the only group that will accept her, Matwei’s. Then they leave without her and Tala. Both head out after the group on their own. Joanna soon has a rescued dog, Peg, accompanying her. Tala finds the group and they accept her as a tracker, though Matwei threatens her. The men in the group go a bit crazy when Joanna tries to rejoin the group, too. And then just after they threaten to eat Joanna’s dog a giant wolf attacks. (This surprised me even though I did see the cover.) This becomes a story of survival and cruelty (via Matwei and other men) and eventually of friendship between the young women. Joanna spends a significant portion of the book remembering her homeland, which she idealizes but which has something seriously dark about it. (It feels like something awful happened there, and the truth is revealed throughout the book.) Even when the two women find gold (a late moment in the story shown early in the book) it’s unclear if the men will let them keep it or if they’ll be able to earn money from it. Throughout, the beauty of Joanna’s home and the wilderness are amazing whether it’s the focus or just background details.

Bea Wolf written by Zach Weinersmith, art by Boulet. First Second, 2023. 9781250776297. With an extensive Afterword by Weinersmith (also illustrated by Boulet) about the poem, its history and translations, that even has a great explanation of kennings, which he uses extensively throughout this book. Plus some pages of Boulet’s sketches. This is a bizarre and beautiful thing. I listened to Weinersmith talk about it a bit at the American Library Association convention, where he appeared with his daughter Ada, which is cool since it’s pretty clear she got him to keep writing and was the first reader and even had nice things to say about Boulet’s art, which clearly buoyed Boulet’s spirits (as he explains in the Acknowledgements in the end). This is a 600-some line illustrated, epic poem based on Beowulf that owes something to Edward Gorey, Tim Burton, and Weinersmith’s English teachers. I have never read anything like it before, and I don’t think there’s ever been anything like it before. It’s about a gang of kids in a treehouse filled with toys and candy and fun that is attacked by a monster who does the most unspeakable thing possible — he steals children’s childhoods. And it’s about the heroic girl who comes to face him. It is absolutely awesome, both silly and serious, and full of language that’s fun to read aloud and illustrations that are fun to look at. Some kids will enjoy it, and some adults will enjoy it, but I think far more adults and kids will enjoy it together. In fact, I’d read this with my daughter now if she’d let me. (She’s in her early twenties, and after I tell her about it, or if she reads this review, I hope she might.)

A First Time For Everything by Dan Santat. First Second, 2023. 9781626724150. 309pp plus an author’s note, a note on recreating old memories for the book, and many photos of Santat’s actual trip! And even the acknowledgments at the end are worth a read. Santat’s graphic memoir opens with a scene of ultimate horror for any middle school student, and he captures it perfectly. It’s a brutal, embarrassing scene. It’s not gross, but he says it made him want to throw up and, I have to tell you, it made me want to throw up, too. The less you know about it going in the better. Forget I said anything. The bulk of the book is about the three weeks Santat spent traveling in Europe with a few other students from school, none of whom is really his friend, and some other kids he doesn’t know. It’s an amazing story full of awkward moments I don’t want to be specific about, plus there’s a mutual crush and lots of friendship. It’s also just a great travel story and an ode to Fanta. This is Santat’s third graphic novel and my personal favorite so far, though Sidekicks and The Aquanaut are both great, too.

Hungry Ghost by Victoria Ying. First Second, 2023. 9781250767004. 204pp. Includes an afterword and a list of resources (books and websites). Val grows up with her mom telling her to watch what she eats, as if being overweight is the worst thing that can happen to her. And whenever she eats she can hear her mom’s voice in her head. But her best friend Jordan is bright, funny, and full of joy, and she eats whatever she wants. Jordan is also overweight and, secretly, Val looks down on Jordan for it. Val has a few other secrets — she makes herself vomit after meals so she can stay thin and she’s got a crush on Allan, who wants to hang out with her and Jordan. As Val starts to apply to colleges and heads off with Jordan and Allan and others on a class trip, it feels like the tension is rising and something in her life is about to break. And it does in a few big ways, including one of the most painful moments in a friendship I’ve ever seen in a book. The art and story are beautiful and straightforward, and I think even middle school kids might enjoy this graphic novel, though it might be triggering for some. The ending is hopeful without feeling unrealistic, which is echoed in the Afterword where Ying explains a bit about her own history with disordered eating.

• Designer Carlos Arturos Torres partnered with the LEGO Future Lab to make his customizable prosthetic compatible with LEGO bricks. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/architecture-design-blog/2015/jul/22/lego-prosthetic-arm-that-kids-can-hack-themselves
• Artist Jan Vormann uses LEGO bricks to fill in holes in bricks and mortar around the world. https://theculturetrip.com/europe/germany/articles/jan-vormann-colors-crumbling-buildings-with-legos/
• And then there’s Rita Ebel, who creates colorful wheelchair ramps using LEGO bricks. https://abilitymagazine.com/lego-oma-german-grandma-builds-lego-ramps/

Four Eyes by Rex Ogle & Dave Valeza. Scholastic Graphix, 2023. 9781338574968. 220pp. Rex just started middle school, but there’s a lack of familiar faces there because school district boundaries have just been redrawn. He and his friend Drew aren’t as close as they were in grade school, and Drew’s friends all seem to be jerks. Rex has problems at school as he and his family figure out that he can’t see well and that he needs glasses. These problems are exacerbated by the fact this his mom and stepfather don’t have much money, and he has to settle for glasses that are less than stylish. Cue Rex becoming the center of attention for all of the jerks at school. Though his family is supportive (except for his birth father, who seems like a real bastard), it takes Rex a while to appreciate them. And (minor spoiler) of course he becomes friends with the comic book-reading kid who the jerks at school also make fun of. I loved this book far more than I expected to based on the back cover blurb (heading: “What A Spectacle”) and I highly recommend it for children’s library collections. The art is great and works together perfectly with the words in a balance that’s hard to achieve. This is an example of the best of the Scholastic Graphix style of storytelling — there’s a problem at the center, some realistic complications, and the story feels personal.

Harvey Knight’s Odyssey by Nick Maandag. Drawn & Quarterly, 2023. 9781770466326. 168pp. This graphic novel contains three separate strange, deadpan stories. Two of them star author and artist Nick Maandag himself. In “The Plunge” Maandag decides to start making his own coffee at work with a French press, and the process becomes something of an event for everyone there. “Full Day” starts with a trash machine sucking the hat right off Maandag’s head as he goes to work in the morning. Thus begins a day that includes a meeting that’s difficult to interpret and a random efficiency check of his work, among other bits of weirdness. Toward the end there’s a lewd act (or brilliant piece of performance art, you be the judge) on a subway. (It’s my favorite story and reminds me of my strangest day working at a public library.) “Harvey Knight’s Odyssey” is the longest story. It involves the religion Solarism, whose members believe humans are products of both light and dark, and that over time, through exposure to light, they can become pure beings. (They use high-powered tanning beds.) The story contains corruption, nudity, cavity searches, sunburns, spiders, and owl-eating. Worth noting: The endpapers contain ten comic strips. And, despite the cover image, I don’t remember a shark or a bird with human feet anywhere in the book, though it’s full of so many odd moments that I feel like I may have overlooked both.