Aphmau is the new girl at school, and she’s worried no one will come to her birthday party. It turns out that isn’t a problem: tons of 
people show up, including her crush, Aaron. Unfortunately, mean girl Stacy also attends, and she’s up to no good. Stacy’s dad is the henchman of a supervillain, and Stacy has stolen some magic from him, which she uses to enchant Aphmau’s birthday cake. When Aphmau tastes the cake, she turns into a wolfgirl, complete with ears and a tail!
Aphmau hopes that making a wish on her birthday candles will fix this mess, but she phrases the wish poorly and ends up dropping their whole town into her favorite video game. Now she, Aaron, and some new friends are hunting for other ways to make a wish(—)shooting stars, wishbones, and so on(—)to try and get things back to normal. They also have to face zombies (part of the game), dinosaurs (the product of another poorly-phrased wish), and Stacy’s angry, evil dad.
This book’s author also goes by Aphmau on her popular YouTube channel, where she posts zany Minecraft and Roblox videos. This book features a lot of characters who also appear in the Minecraft videos, and the game that Aphmau plays in the book appears to be Minecraft.
This book opens with profiles of nine major characters, including their likes, dislikes, and relationships to each other. That’s good, because readers will encounter a lot of characters, sometimes without much in-story context or introduction. Presumably, though, viewers of Aphmau’s YouTube videos will be familiar with many of them already.
The art is cute and colorful, with a vibe that is part manga and part retro American cartoon. Aphmau’s fans likely know the characters as Minecraft avatars, and might enjoy seeing them adapted into these much more expressive and detailed cartoons. There are a few scenes that take place in the game world, and it’s interesting to see the cartoon characters interacting with the blocky Minecraft-style world after Aphmau’s wish accidentally drops their town into the game.
The premise of this book is fun: a carelessly-worded wish causes mayhem, and the characters go searching for more wishes to fix it but keep messing up those wishes and making things worse. The execution can feel haphazard and chaotic, and the action is sometimes undercut by the silliness of the dialog. It is, however, a pretty good match for the wacky, unscripted feel of Aphmau’s videos, which clearly have lots of fans: as of the writing of this review, her channel has over 23 million subscribers. Readers who haven’t watched her videos may find this book confusing, but if they like it, then they might also enjoy Aphmau’s YouTube content.
Aphmau Searching for HomeÂ
By Aphmau
Art by Michela Cacciatore
Harper Collins Harper Alley, 2025
ISBN: 9780063288102
NFNT Age Recommendation: Middle Grade (7-11), Tween (10-13)
