Graphic Novel Review: Oh My Gods! Written by Stephanie Cooke and Insha Fitzpatrick

Posted on March 30, 2021 at 10:32 am by Gene Ambaum

Oh My Gods! written by Stephanie Cooke and Inshah Fitzpatrick, Art by Juliana Moon, Color by Whitney Cogar. Etch (houghton Mifflin Harcourt), 2021. 9780358299523. 208pp.

Karen leaves New Jersey to go stay with her dad, Zed, for a while in Mt. Olympus, Greece. There’s a crowd to greet her at the airport, and then a chariot pulled by a winged horsed takes them from the airport to his house. (Karen doesn’t think the horse’s wings are real.) Her dad is a bit cagey about what he does for a living but it’s clear he’s the dean of students at her junior high, and, from other clues, that he’s a whole lot more than that. Hermes gives Karen a tour of her new school on her first day. Despite the centaur in the cafeteria Karen doesn’t seem to have a clue as to what’s going on or where she actually is. (I’m sure any reasonable kid would know by that point. But Karen’s naiveté is on the charming side, and works with the art to create a light tone throughout the book.)

The plot, other than waiting for Karen to realize who her dad is mythologically and to find out what that means for her, involves someone turning students into stone. Suspicion falls on Karen since she’s new, but it’s pretty obvious which mythological being is the real culprit (and that she and Karen will likely end up being friends in the end).