JieJie and her little brother DiDi live in a desert wasteland outside of a bustling metropolis known as Oasis City. Their mother works long, grueling hours in order to get her children admitted to the city. JieJie does her best to keep her little brother in good spirits and acts as sister, best friend, and mother. But this is no job for a child. Scavenging for water, enduring sandstorms, and trying to make nutritious meals from dry packets weigh heavily on JieJie. Things change when the children come across a scrapped AI robot in a junkyard. This new addition to the family is able to do pretty much everything their original mother can and the children begin to develop a familial love for her. Despite the story’s dark premise, it ends on a very hopeful note.
I do want to draw attention (pun intended) to the beautiful illustrations in this book. The character designs are minimal and delicate – the people in this story have a cartoonish, child-friendly design that is almost evocative of dolls or toys and I think the whole vibe endears them to the reader. The harsh environments and settings are realistically rendered, and Goujing makes excellent use of color and highlight to bring out the despair and hope in the story.
Oasis has a lot of potential for dark storytelling, but ultimately leaves these plot threads behind to favor a saccharine ending. I feel that there was a rich vein to mine about AI, environmentalism, the nature of work in capitalist societies (a very haunting connection is drawn between the children’s mother and the AI robot), and how all of those things have the potential to just slam together and what sort of disasters it might create.
But really, this book is not necessarily trying to speak to me personally. As the author states, the book was inspired by the “left-behind children” of China—children who live in rural areas while their parents seek work in cities. A happy ending is what we want to give these children who are so far away from their parents, and it’s easy to see that desire reflected in the story. The publisher describes it as “filled with equal parts hope and suspense,” and I am inclined to agree.
Oasis By Guojing Macmillan, 2025 ISBN: 9781250818386
Company Age Rating: 8-12
NFNT Age Recommendation: Middle Grade (7-11) Creator Representation: Chinese, Character Representation: Chinese,
UK illustrator Tim Bird’s Adrift on a Painted Sea is a short reflection of the life and passing of his mother, Sue Bird, and the art she left behind. Using a combination of his own Illustrations, his mother’s paintings, and other artifacts from her life, he showcases her work in a touching tribute.
Bird sifts through recollections of his mother, inserting memories from his childhood in between more recent experiences of her aging, by using imagery with minimal dialogue that lets the reader soak in the emotional state of the author. He explores her artistic pursuits and her love of painting the ocean, but he also centers his own experience with her loss. The vignette style of this volume is engaging, but sometimes shifts suddenly, leaving the reader feeling adrift in the narrative. This could have been Bird’s intention all along, creating a story that ebbs and flows like the ocean itself. He uses simple lines and a muted color palette of bluish grays, beige, and salmon to share his memories of his mother and his struggles with her loss, which he often superimposes over his mother’s rich and colorful seaside landscapes. There’s a sharp contrast between the quiet, idealistic images of Sue Bird and the more bleak simplicity of her son’s storytelling.
I wondered if I would see myself reflected in the pages of this graphic novel. Both the author and I had artist mothers that created prodigiously over a lifetime and kept much of their work. We both lost our mothers to cancer in 2022 amid the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. There is a lot in Bird’s storytelling that I recognized, like the way you hold in your exhaustion and overwhelm until you’re completely alone, or the grief you feel over the questions that can no longer be asked after someone has passed. Bird doesn’t directly comment on his feelings about delving through his mother’s body of work after her death, but it’s evident it was impactful enough for him to want to showcase her work in this volume.
I expected the narrative to stir that deep part of myself where I hide my grief, but I didn’t find the story inherently sad. Obviously, there are depictions of loss and grief, which feel very real to me, but actual death and its aftermath are depicted somewhat abstractly and peacefully. The point of Adrift on a Painted Sea is to celebrate and appreciate the work of a woman that was loved and cherished by her son and to see how her son processes his grief through the shared medium of art. It’s not meant to pull you down into pain and despair, but to acknowledge the difficulty of losing a valued family member.
Adrift on a Painted Sea will be most impactful in an adult graphic novel collection. There is no material that would make it inappropriate for younger readers, but adults, particularly those with aging parents, are more likely to relate to this story.
Adrift on a Painted Sea By Tim Bird Avery Hill Publishing, 2024 ISBN: 9781910395820
Billions of years ago, the Sun rose and brought light to the world. A billion years is a long time though, and the young, smiling Sun gradually becomes tired and discontent. One night, after a bit of too much partying, the Sun sleeps in… for a long time. The world is not the same, and creatures normally adverse to the light come out of a cave to hunt, and everyone is struggling to make it through continuous darkness, including Death and their friend Philomène the flower…
Botanica Drama is a wordless graphic novel that tells a tale about what could happen to a world if the Sun sets one day… and decides not to rise. The story opens with the “birth” of the Sun, young and excited. Tall, mysterious creatures who thrived in the darkness scurry to hide in a cave, and new and interesting life begins. The circle of life occurs and some creatures meet their fates at the hands of others, and Death, in his prehistoric garb, does his job of guiding their spirits. One new friend is the flower Philomène, who forms an unlikely bond with Death.
Time passes, and there is now a village with several inhabitants including Death and Philomène. No longer so fresh and full of spunk,, the Sun becomes more and more discontent with its job until it eventually shirks its duty after a rowdy night. As the Sun remains sleeping, the darkness continues until winter sets in. Not only do the creatures emerge from their cave to terrorize the villagers, but the cold and dark take their toll as well. Death makes consecutive visits to retrieve and deliver spirits, while Philomène slowly loses their petals.
The Sun shows no signs of waking up and fixing things, so a few ingenuitive villagers eventually come up with a plan to wake it up. What ensues is a funny and heartfelt attempt to wake the Sun and save the world. Almost all the villagers join in, even Death in dramatic and desperate fashion.
Botanica Drama manages to balance humor and sadness with the strength of visual storytelling alone. Being a story without words, Botanica Drama needed to have a strong visual narrative, and it succeeded in that regard. The art has a retro cartoony feel to it that harkens back to classic comic strips.The style embodies the humorous parts, while at the same time conveying the gentle and more serious elements of the story. Overall, the art is charming, and there are so many little elements that it’s worth exploring each panel carefully.
The publisher’s age rating wasn’t immediately listed for Botanica Drama, but older kids to adults can enjoy it. The scene where the Sun parties too hard and passes out involves comedic scenes of excessive drinking, as well as a concerning moment where the Sun drives while possibly still under the influence. Besides that, there are some tense scenes and some sad ones, particularly with Death as a character, but the humor tempers the fear and sadness, and the love and care between the characters shines through.
Botanica Drama By Thom Pow Pow Press, 2024 ISBN: 9782925114314
Related media: Tween (10-13), Teen (13-16), Older Teen (16-18), Adult (18+)
NFNT Age Recommendation: Adult (18+), Older Teen (16-18), Teen (13-16), Tween (10-13)
long, grueling hours in order to get her children admitted to the city. JieJie does her best to keep her little brother in good spirits and acts as sister, best friend, and mother. But this is no job for a child. Scavenging for water, enduring sandstorms, and trying to make nutritious meals from dry packets weigh heavily on JieJie. Things change when the children come across a scrapped AI robot in a junkyard. This new addition to the family is able to do pretty much everything their original mother can and the children begin to develop a familial love for her. Despite the story’s dark premise, it ends on a very hopeful note.
behind. Using a combination of his own Illustrations, his mother’s paintings, and other artifacts from her life, he showcases her work in a touching tribute.
Billions of years ago, the Sun rose and brought light to the world. A billion years is a long time though, and the young, smiling Sun gradually becomes tired and discontent. One night, after a bit of too much partying, the Sun sleeps in… for a long time. The world is not the same, and creatures normally adverse to the light come out of a cave to hunt, and everyone is struggling to make it through continuous darkness, including Death and their friend Philomène the flower…
