When You Look Up by Decur. Translated from Spanish by Chloe Garcia Roberts. Enchanted Lion, 2020. 9781592702930. 184 pp. After Lorenzo and his mom move to a new house, he finds an old desk in his room. It has a secret door behind which he finds a notebook full of strange stories, told in words and pictures made of carefully cut out pieces of paper. The first is about a rabbit stuck in a passage playing catch with an ostrich in a room full of valuable, breakable objects. (It ends with the rabbit being chased by a terrifying lamp creature, which looks like part of the chandelier in the new house.) The second story is about a scout who’s in love with a girl who’s being chased by an annoying dog. (Shortly after reading it Lorenzo befriends a dog.) The next is about birds who work in a strange factory. The stories all seem like they’re real or related to the real world in some way, and eventually Lorenzo finds out why. This is a beautiful story about making and sharing art and stories — it’s like five short graphic novels in one. And I love the texture of Decur’s drawings, which seem to add height and depth to the pages in much the paper collages do.

Aster and the Mixed-Up Magic by Thom Pico and Karensac. RH Graphic, 2021. 9780593125342. 256pp. The second Aster graphic novel is as delightful as the first and includes two stories originally published as separate books in French. “All’s Well That Ends Wool” involves the Dumbacabra, a half-man half-goat also known as Karas, the leader of the Sheep Revolution. It’s all a bit silly and fairly non-threatening, though the sheep cause some mayhem. There’s magic, talking animals, and Aster’s dad is very excited that he’s a knight. Her mom, a researcher, still doesn’t know the valley where they live is full of magic, though she finds out in the second story, “The End Of Everything (And What Happened Next).” That one involves a trickster god, a trip into a spirit maze, a bunch of plant-headed sylvan beings all named Mike, and the end of the world. It’s all lighthearted, colorful fun.

Out Of Nowhere by Chris Naylor-Ballesteros. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2020. 9781534481008. Beetle has a friend, a red caterpillar. They used to have picnics on a big rock that looked out over the forest. But then the caterpillar disappeared (into its cocoon under the rock, but Beetle didn’t know that), so Beetle went into the forest to find its friend. Spoiler: when they’re reunited, Beetle’s friend looks a bit different. This is my wife’s favorite picture book of the lot. Her comment: “So beautiful!” The illustrations are dark and exquisite with just a bit of red, and the friends’ body language and eyes express so much. The Worst Poet Ever by Lauren Stohler. Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2020. 9781534446281. @inkpug Cat and Pug write poetry; Cat with a quill and Pug using a typewriter. Cat’s poems have a classic feel. Pug’s don’t — he writes poems about (and while typing with) different body parts. Which doesn’t mean Cat’s poems aren’t fun, too. It turns into a bit of poetry fight, and then into something even better when they collaborate. The illustrations are really fun, and this is another of those comics-in-disguise picture books that uses word balloons and borderless panels perfectly. The Run by Barroux. Aladdin, 2020. 9781534408869. Stylized, simple animals run to the across forests, savannas, swamps, ice, fields, deserts, et al while an unseen narrator tries to get their attention and figure out what is going on. Turns out the reason they’r running is related to what the kid who’s reading the book (and narrating it) is doing which (hint) may make this a fun book to read to a kid who’s potty training. Barroux’s art looks like he draws with black ink on top of paints, which makes all of the animals charming.  

My Riot by Rick Spears, art and colors by Emmett Helen. Oni Press, 2020. 9781620107768. 184pp. Val is obsessed with ballet. When her instructor tells her she’s too heavy for Swan Lake because no male dancer will lift her, she takes the instructor’s suggestion and starts smoking. Soon she meets Kat — they’re working together scooping ice cream when a riot over a police shooting spills into the shop, cementing their friendship. She’s under increasing pressure about her weight when Kat takes her to her first punk show. Val seems much more attracted to the straight edge lead singer she meets than to the ballet dancer trying to make her fall in love with him. It’s not too long before she and Kat form a band and her life takes a hard turn away from ballet. Her parents are, of course, alarmed. (But as a parent who just passed the moment they’re living through with his own daughter, I have to say they handle the situation pretty well.) Bonus: the story is set in the early1990s, during the Riot Grrrl movement, so I knew a lot of the bands Val and Kat looked up to. (It’s not such a period piece that it will alienate the young readers it’s intended for, though they will notice the lack of cell phones.)

Pilu of the Woods by Mai K. Nguyen. Oni Press, 2019. 9781620105634. 160pp. including a nature journal and a recipe for mushroom rice in the back. Willow is in elementary school. She cries a lot and lashes out. (A lot of that is because her mom died after Willow said some horrible things to her, though that’s not incredibly clear until much later in the book.) Willow’s sister, who is trying to take care of her, tells her she needs to grow up and stop being so out of control. Willow, upset, runs off into the woods with her dog, Chicory, where they meet a lost forest spirit, Pilu, who ran away from home after fighting with her mother. By trying to help Pilu find her way home, Willow opens up about the little monsters inside her that sometimes take over (Pilu has her own version of these, too), and tries to find a better way to deal with them than locking them away. Nguyen’s art feels very kind and friendly, and though the watery “monsters” inside Willow can look a little a little angry they’re probably not enough to freak out most younger readers. There are a few pages full of facts about the forest, which arise from Willow’s conversation with Pilu. Nguyen’s forest colors seem bound to inspire art along similar lines.

Black Heroes of the West by James Otis Smith. Introduction by Kadir Nelson. TOON Books, 2020. 9781943145515. 59pp. The first true story of the adventurous and generous Mary Fields opens with her fighting off a pack of wolves, first with a rifle then with a torch and knife, during the time she drove a Star Route mail coach in Montana in 1898. (The life of Stagecoach Mary, a former slave, had many notable episodes. This one, along with the tale of her using a gun at a poker game when she was accused of cheating, are arguably the most action-packed.) In the next, Deputy US Marshal Bass Reeves uses guile and guns to bring in the notorious Clancy brothers. (As noted at the end of the book, Reeves fled to the Indian Territories as a fugitive slave during the Civil War, became the first black US Marshal west of the Mississippi, and the Lone Ranger may be based on his story.) The third is about Bob Lemmons who was famed for the way he brought in herds of wild mustangs by becoming the leader of the herd. There are photographs and art works featuring black cowboys throughout (along with depictions of others that defy stereotypes like Mexican, mestizo, and Native American cowboys as well), and at the end there are a few pages of supplementary text about the true old west, its myths, and the three heroes featured. Smith’s storytelling is pitch perfect, and the photographs are inspiring.

The Fall Volume One by Jared Muralt. Translated from German by Franze He & Christoph Studer-Harper. Image, 2021. 9781534318380. Contains The Fall #1 – #6. http://www.powells.com/book/-9781534318380?partnerid=34778&p_bt There’s a heat wave, an economic crisis, and some kind of summer flu that’s out of control. Martial law has been declared. Food is scarce. Liam just lost his job, and his wife didn’t come home from the hospital ICU where she works last night. Cut to: her funeral. Everything is closed. Liam just wants to keep his kids, Max and Sophia, safe and fed, but there’s no food, and the violence in the streets is escalating. By the time they finally decide to head for the mountains, to his kids’ grandparent place, it feels like it’s already too late. But that doesn’t stop the three of them from trying to care for the baby they come across on their way there. I pulled this book off the shelf at my local comics store because it’s oversized, and I love large, European-sized graphic albums. I bought it because its understated colors are stunning, as are Muralt’s drawings themselves. The images help create a quiet tone that makes the societal collapse they depict feel more gradual, final, and realistic, and that makes the violence in the book more vivid. Recommended for fans of the scenes on Earth in Interstellar, and of the quieter moments of desperation in The Walking Dead.

Pistouvi written by Merwan, designed and directed by Bertrand Gatignol. English translation by Mike Kennedy. Magnetic, 202. 9781942367956. 192pp. Friends Jeanne and Pistouvi (a fox) live in a tree together. There are birds nearby, some of which are enormous; a song from Jeanne’s ocarina drives them a little crazy, and keeps Pistouvi safe. A giant, the Tractor, clears the land. The Wind scatters magic seeds that grow in his wake. The friends lead a play-filled life, but there are dangers around, and a frightening change may be coming. This is a strange graphic novel. It feels a bit like a parable, a legend, or a bedtime story. The art is kinetic and silly and threatening all at the same time. If I’d have found it when I was in grade school, it would be one of those books that haunted me forever. It reminds me, in the best way, of Luke Pearson’s Hilda graphic novels and Thomas Pico’s and Karensac’s Aster books.

The Big Bad Fox by Benjamin Renner. Translated from French by Joe Johnson. First Second, 2017. 9781626723313. 188pp. A hapless fox tries to steal eggs from the henhouse at the farm, but he’s beat up by a very angry chicken. A pig and rabbit offer him some turnips instead, but that doesn’t make him happy. Then a wolf tries to turn him into a ruthless predator, mostly because the wolf can’t get near the chickens himself. At his urging the fox manages to steal a few eggs, which the wolf then expects the fox to hatch and raise so that the wolf can finally eat some chicken. The pig and rabbit set out to capture the fox. The chickens are up in arms (up in wings?). And of course, because this is ridiculous, the chicks hatch and bond with the fox, who also clearly loves them (and then needs to keep the wolf from eating them). It’s all a bit silly, but I love the simple drawings and the panel-less layout. The whole graphic novel flows, and I wish I had a kid to read it to again right now. (Renner is an animator who made the feature film Ernest & Celestine, and who has also turned this book into an animated TV special, part of The Big Bad Fox And Other Tales. My local library has a copy, and I hope yours does, too.)