Graphic Novel Review: Little Monarchs by Jonathan Case

Posted on May 30, 2024 at 5:57 am by Gene Ambaum

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!