Amy spends most of her time absorbed in mystery novels. Severe social anxiety makes it hard for her to connect to her middle school classmates. She’s working on it with a therapist, but so far Amy is still too nervous to try talking to her peers or raising her hand in class. And that’s before she freezes up during her science presentation and runs to hide in the bathroom.
The next day, Amy is so embarrassed and nervous, she tries extra hard to avoid talking to anyone. So naturally, she’s flustered when her classmate Reagan unexpectedly hands her a birthday party invitation. Amy doesn’t know Reagan well, and she’s terrified that she could embarrass herself in front of everyone, or even ruin the party. But on the other hand, this could be a chance to actually connect with some classmates. And it’s a murder mystery party! Can mystery lover Amy really pass that up?
At the party, Amy discovers that when she’s caught up in the mystery game—and in playing her in-game character, a scientist named Millie—her social anxiety fades away. After all, Millie wouldn’t be nervous about speaking up and being noticed. As she and the other kids interact both as their characters and as themselves, Amy starts to feel more comfortable. Reagan and her friends seem really nice. But the murder mystery game grows tenser, suspicion begins to fall on Millie, and Amy’s anxiety rises again. Can she solve the mystery? How will her new friends react if she freezes up?
This book uses the fun scenario of a murder mystery game – plus a group of sympathetic peers – to help anxious Amy come out of her shell. We follow Amy closely, seeing her thoughts and fears: the panicky physical sensations that accompany her social anxiety, her worries about being judged by other kids, and the ways she strategizes to avoid stressful situations. We even see some of the techniques her therapist teaches her to help her calm herself. By the time she gets the party invitation, her social anxiety is well-established, as is her love of mystery novels, inviting the reader to root for Amy to let her passion lead her rather than her fear.
The mystery game sees Amy, Reagan, and three other kids playing adults in a Clue-style manor, trying to determine which of them committed a murder. All the kids are enthusiastic and seem goodhearted, and they have some fun silly moments that make them feel like real kids, like when they break from the game for snacks and compete over who can stuff more pizza bites in their mouth. This works especially well when Amy eventually tells the others that she has social anxiety. They are supportive without being unrealistically mature: they offer sympathy and understanding, but then—like real kids—they quickly jump topics, from anxiety to eczema to poison oak, leaving Amy to marvel that her freeze-up didn’t ruin the party at all.
The visuals effectively illustrate Amy’s headspace. When she starts getting anxious, the background and other characters go from full color to grayscale. This keeps the focus on Amy and her thought bubbles, making it clear that she is stuck in her head and feels removed from the world around her. When Amy and the other kids at the party are immersed in the mystery game, they are drawn as their characters, who are adults but look enough like their real selves to be recognizable. Reagan’s house becomes an elaborate manor, with lavish settings like a library and formal dining room. Throughout, the characters are soft and cartoony, the colors rich. The book is divided into ten chapters, with each one marked by a page patterned like fancy wallpaper.
This is a sympathetic and optimistic story of Amy learning that social anxiety doesn’t have to make her miss out on life. Hand it to fans of realistic fiction and gentle mysteries.
Millie of the Manor By Karina Evans Art by Andrea Bell Harper Collins Harper Alley, 2025 ISBN: 9780063282483
Company Age Rating: 8-12
NFNT Age Recommendation: Middle Grade (7-11), Tween (10-13)
At the end of the summer, siblings Evan and Jessie will both start fourth grade. Evan is right on schedule, while his gifted little sister Jessie is skipping a grade. The problem is, their school only has one fourth-grade classroom. Evan and Jessie are close, but Evan fears that being in the same class will make it obvious that his little sister is, in some ways, smarter than he is. So while Jessie is looking forward to school starting, Evan is dreading it.
Jessie—brilliant with academics but not so much with social skills – can’t see why Evan would be upset, which just upsets him more. Now, Evan doesn’t want to hang out with Jessie for what’s left of the summer, so he ditches her to set up a lemonade stand with another neighborhood kid. Jessie is hurt, but thinks maybe if she starts her own lemonade stand, she can impress Evan and make him want to hang out with her again.
Instead, the lemonade stands become a fierce competition, which spirals until Evan and Jessie make a bet: whoever earns more money by the end of the summer gets both of their profits. It’s Jessie’s math and business smarts versus Evan’s doggedness and people skills. Who will win? And will Jessie and Evan ever work things out between them, or will their closeness be a casualty of the lemonade war?
This graphic novel adapts the 2007 book The Lemonade War, the first of a series, which garnered a list of awards and positive reviews. Like the original, this adaptation gets its tension and momentum from Evan and Jessie’s sibling rivalry, but also slips in some math and lots of basic economics concepts, all explained in an accessible way for young readers. Jessie calculates profit margins and tries out the value-added tactic of offering free pretzels at her stand; Evan runs afoul of local business regulations when he starts selling lemonade on public property downtown without a license. As they try to out-maneuver each other, Evan and Jessie use business strategies including underselling, advertising, and even franchising.
Jessie and Evan are very different, but both sympathetic and interesting. Thought bubbles provide lots of information on their interior lives, showing readers when there is a miscommunication, something Jessie doesn’t understand, or something Evan thinks but isn’t willing to say. Flashbacks help explain their motivations and illustrate how close the siblings normally are. While no diagnosis is ever mentioned, Jessie seems coded as perhaps being on the autism spectrum: she takes social interactions at face value and is often confused when people are not straightforward, and one page shows her looking at a chart of facial expressions labeled with different emotions.
The art is clear, with a slightly cartoonified realistic style. Panel sizes and layouts vary, adding visual interest. The backgrounds are fairly simple, keeping the focus on the characters and what they are doing – including, occasionally, working out lemonade-related math, which is laid out for readers to see. When a flashback begins, the panel outlines change from having black outlines and sharp corners to brown outlines and rounded corners, and all the colors take on a slightly muted look, like a subtle version of the sepia tone in old photos.
This book has sympathetic characters who feel like real kids. It packs in a lot of kid-friendly economics concepts, but its driving force remains the relationship between Evan and Jessie. Hand it to kids who like realism and good-hearted young characters trying to navigate family and friend conflicts – and to fans of stories about kid entrepreneurs, like the Baby-Sitters Club.
The Lemonade War By Jacqueline Davoes Art by Karen De la Vega Harper Collins Harper Alley, 2025 ISBN: 9780063310384
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 Home By Aphmau Art by Michela Cacciatore Harper Collins Harper Alley, 2025 ISBN: 9780063288102
NFNT Age Recommendation: Middle Grade (7-11), Tween (10-13)
There’s something for everyone to choose from in graphic novels for early and beginning readers now and this goofy offering will certainly appeal to many readers.
Marco, a brown-skinned kid, is happily marching home from school on Friday when his green-haired sister races past him, trying to escape from “those psycho squirrels.” Marco makes it inside just in time, before the two gray-furred squirrels slam into the door and he calms himself down by offering to make his sister one of his special sandwiches. She turns down the offer, but Marco goes ahead with his creation anyways; joined by his pet dog Poofypants.
No sooner is the sandwich completed and an effort to steal it by the squirrels thwarted, then Marco makes a shocking discovery—the sandwich can speak! He quickly gets over his shock and Sandwich helps him out in pranking his sister only to be stolen by the squirrels! Luckily, Sandwich can speak squirrel and it turns out the squirrels aren’t psycho, they’ve just been challenging Marco’s family to dance battles. Can Marco and Poofypants beat the squirrels and retrieve their friend Sandwich before it gets eaten?
The quirky story is matched by the silly art; Poofypants is a fluffy puffball of a dog, with a black ball of a nose and Marco has a round, Charlie Brown-style head with big glasses and a perpetually attached green knit cap. Sandwich is a three-humped sub, topped with cartoon eyeballs, while the squirrels show off their tough hip-hop moves with an old-fashioned boombox, cool shades, and two dark slashes of eyebrows. The panel backgrounds reflect the cartoon landscape, showing pink walls inside the house and a green backyard.
This is a quick, fun read for kids just transitioning into chapters and stands out because of its representation of brown kids in a funny story. Adults will probably roll their eyes and groan at the ridiculous talking food and wacky hijinks, but fans of other goofy tales like Bad Guys will be delighted with this new series.
Lunch Buddies: Battle in the backyard, Vol. 1 By Daniel Wiseman Harper Collins Harper Alley, 2023 ISBN: 9780063236233
Printer’s apprentice Cinzia has worked for printer Mestra Aronne in the sunny city of Siannerra for almost three years. Mestra has taught her a lot about the printing press, news sources, listening to the city’s talk, and the importance of truth when printing an avvisi, the town news pamphlet. Mestra is certain that Cinzia will be a fine printer someday. But when Cinzia and Mestra are taken to the principessa for something they printed, the principessa says the guards will keep them in jail until she and the magistrate (her brother) figure out what to do with them. The principessa says they’re treasonous for reporting what Mestra says is the truth. But if it’s the truth, why won’t anyone speak up for them?
Cinzia escapes and sets out to prove that her Mestra’s story is true—but she won’t have to do it alone! Unknown to the principessa, her daughter (the contessina Elena) knows that, “truth is dangerous, and power is dangerous.” She will help Cinzia find the proof that may help release Mestra. Carlotta the pirate has ears all through the city and wants to help. Cinzia knows that nothing stays secret for long, and the powerful have a vested interest in keeping secrets secret.
The three young women are from very different backgrounds. The book delves into many topics, some of which are complex for readers ages 8-12, which is the age range Greenwillow Press has marked the book for. The Italianate style of the city, the whispers and politics, and the Romanesque palazzos all add complexity to the story. This is a fast-moving story for middle school kids interested in European history, journalism, historical reenactment, or sleuthing and mysteries. Cinzia, Elena, and Carlotta are positive role models who portray persistence, honesty, and bravery. Kids will identify with being scared but wanting to do the right thing, even when it’s hard and not what you thought it would be or costs you something dear. They’ll also learn a lot about the power of the press and friendship. The book asks hard questions and makes young people think.
The art is bright and clean lined and the panels flow easily. Some pages show the warm bright Mediterranean sun and describe the characters’ escape from the guards using maps of the different palazzos. The pages aren’t text-heavy and word balloons are placed so that young readers can easily see the conversation flow. The characters are diverse and have many skin colors. Kids will see themselves represented in many of them. The title is 287 pages and comes with an author’s note in the back, explaining the real history of avvisi and the fictional city of Siannerra.
I agree with Greenwillow Press, this is a great addition to a middle school library—it’s a unique subject and time period for this age group.
Ink Girls By Marieke Nijkamp Art by Sylvia Bi Harper Collins Harper Alley, 2023 ISBN: 9780063027107
Publisher Age Rating: 8-12 NFNT Age Recommendation: Middle Grade (7-11)
There are plenty of media-related graphic novels, but Harper Alley seems to have cornered the market on unique properties, mostly YouTube related. This graphic novel combines a popular toy, slime, with a media personality, Karina Garcia, to create a fluffy but fun story.
Sophie, her big sister Bailey, and their best friend Jayden run their own slime business, BSJ Slime, and they’re very successful. Except that Bailey and Jayden have been butting heads and they’re not the only ones who aren’t getting along! When the three leave their workshop after creating a special slime for a contest put on by Aymee’s Slime Emporium, the slimes come to life!
Each slime has a name and a distinct personality. They’re shown as fist-sized blobs with enough definition and detail, as well as distinct colors, to tell them apart. Each falls into a male or female binary, with a certain amount of stereotyping—for example, Polly, the popular, glittery pink slime is “female” and Boris, the old, grumpy green slime who becomes the villain, is “male”.
Polly is all set for another fun day of play when Boris warns them all that the disappearing slimes are being destroyed. Polly investigates and sees Boris eat Skip, a crunchy yellow slime! But when Skip shows back up, even though he’s acting strange, Polly gets downvoted in favor of listening to Boris’ warnings and threats. When it becomes clear the BSJ slime shop—and all the slimes—are in danger, Polly and her friends sneak out to find help and go on a wild adventure through the neighborhood, meeting new friends and learning valuable lessons along the way.
Happily, all ends well and not only the slimes but the three human friends work through their differences and learn to respect each other and value each person’s contribution. The story ends with a slime party, lots of unique slime recipes and bases, and an illustrated cast of the slime and human characters.
The color palette is mostly pastels, with a few darker pinks and turquoise slimes splashing extra color across the pages. There’s not a lot of plot, but the cute slimes stretching, bouncing, and squeezing across the pages make for an amusing narrative. Sophia and Bailey appear to be half-siblings from a casual mention of different dads and both have brown skin and hair. Bailey has a full figure and comfortably wears shorts and tank tops while Sophia is skinnier and sports tattered, rolled up jeans and a t-shirt. Jayden is Black, with short hair and glasses and wears long shorts and a maroon hoodie. There is one typo on page 50.
There is an underlying message of working together and building friendships, but Bailey and Jayden’s arguments are resolved off-screen and they simply apologize and get back to work when they see each other after the slimes’ adventures. Polly has a lot of toxic views of popularity and friendship, but even when she lashes out at her friends near the end, they all still help her and she apologizes and learns to work with them. However, the message is really secondary to the wish-fulfillment of all the slime you could ever want! Plus, tons of cute slimes, silly jokes, and a lighthearted, amusing adventure. If you have young readers who are still deeply invested in making and playing with slimes, or if you have fans of Karina Garcia (who appears in the book thinly disguised as the Aymee of the Slime Emporium), this is sure to fly off your shelves.
Slime Shop By Kevin Panetta Art by Niki Smith Harper Collins Harper Alley, 2023 ISBN: 9780358446453
Publisher Age Rating: grade 3-7 NFNT Age Recommendation: Easy Readers (5-9), Middle Grade (7-11)
Cade is a shy, horror-movie-obsessed teen living in rural Texas. Surrounded by homophobia, he figures he’ll never be able to come out as gay, let alone find a boyfriend. Anyway, he has other things to worry about. His family is low on money, so his parents insist that Cade get a summer job at a ranch, which pays better than the more comfortable indoor jobs he would prefer. It’s hard labor, but on the plus side he gets to work with Henry, the teenaged son of the ranch owner. Henry is attractive, mysterious, and possibly interested in Cade. But there are rumors swirling around the ranch. People have died. In fact, the whole situation reminds Cade of a horror movie. Will he be the next victim?
This is a retelling of Jane Austen’s novel Northanger Abbey, in which a young woman allows her love of Gothic novels to color her perception of the real world. Like the heroine of that novel, Cade sees and hears a few strange things and lets his imagination fill in the gaps with terrifying theories. Changing the Gothic novels to horror movies and the setting to a lonely ranch in modern-day Texas makes for a creative update. Cade’s unease and sense of being in danger are supported by encounters with racist and homophobic locals—a situation based on the author’s own experience growing up queer, closeted, and Latine in rural Texas.
Cade comes from a class background that is underrepresented in teen fiction: his blended, multiracial family is struggling financially, living in a rural area where military service and religion play a large part in many people’s lives. This adds to Cade’s isolation, as there is a lot of homophobia in the local culture. Even his generally well-meaning stepdad casually uses homophobic language. Henry, too, has struggled to reconcile his identity with his church’s condemnation of queer people.
A content note at the beginning advises that the book contains “moments of homophobia, misogyny, racism, domestic violence, animal cruelty, and confronting death.” There is a character whose past includes becoming suicidal and spending time in a mental health facility, and another character uses stigmatizing language about it. And although he is seeing a therapist and working on his anger issues, Henry can be violent, which is an alarming quality in a love interest. There are also a handful of swear words, up to and including the f-bomb. Despite all that, though, this story is not grim throughout. It is, after all, a romance, with plenty of sweet moments and—eventually—a hopeful ending.
The art is cute and expressive, with a simplified realistic style reminiscent of Faith Erin Hicks. The book is two-color, with shades of red and pink punctuated by bold black and lots of deep shadows, especially in the creepy parts. Horror movie fans may notice a few classic film posters in some of the panels.
This is a creative retelling that stands alone. Sometimes sweet and sometimes gripping, it addresses tough topics but also brings humor and smooches. Hand it to fans of Kevin Panetta’s Bloom and Alice Oseman’s Heartstopper.
Northranger By Rey Terciero Art by Bre Indigo Harper Collins Harper Alley, 2023 ISBN: 9780063007383
Publisher Age Rating: 13+ NFNT Age Recommendation: Older Teen (16-18), Teen (13-16)
Smith, the creator of the pun-filled Pea Bee and Jay and Giarrusso, artist of the Mini Marvels, team up for a Dog Man/Sponge Bob mash-up, complete with underwater hijinks, supervillains, and flavorful kelp cakes.
It’s a peaceful day under the sea in Caper Cove, when a crime is committed! To catch up with the culprit, the police call in Clawsome, a lobster, and his sidekick Stariana. Together, the two save the day and set out to Kelpy’s for their favorite kelp cakes. But something is going on behind the scenes… something big. When people and even buildings start disappearing, Clawsome and Stariana will have to solve their biggest case yet, going up against all manner of undersea villains, secret plots, and even some pro-wrestling drama. When the claws hit the mat, who can they depend on? And will they be able to save their friends—and themselves?
Colorful cartoons pop from the pages of this silly story, with the bright red Clawsome shooting through the air, spinning yellow, grinning Stariana like a weapon, and zooming through the streets in submarine autos. There’s a giant claw machine, Lucha Libre style wrestlers (mussels of course), and gangs of pufferfish popping their spikes during bank heists. The action is non-stop and the underwater backgrounds, shown by occasional streams of bubbles and streams of water, don’t stop Giarrusso from going all out with helicopters, blimps, and bouncing back and forth between creatures swimming and floating through the atmosphere and then being threatened with being dropped from great heights. Crabs, seahorses, a goldfish in Sherlock Holmes’ style tweeds and cap, and a myriad of underwater creatures fight, commute, plot, and run retail establishments throughout the story and the bright colors complement the endless stream of puns.
This is definitely in the vein of Dog Man, but is most likely to appeal to fans of John Patrick Green’s InvestiGators or Mo O’Hara’s Agent Moose. There’s no attempt at realism; it’s more a superhero story than a police mystery and the goofy antics of the characters, like stopping in the middle of an investigation for a wrestling bout, will keep kids giggling all the way through. This genre is extremely popular right now and this will fly off the shelves in both schools and public libraries, giving young readers plenty of harmless fun and enjoyment.
Officer Clawsome, vol. 1: Lobster Cop By Brian Smitty Smith Art by Chris Giarrusso Harper Collins Harper Alley, 2023 ISBN: 9780063136366
Publisher Age Rating: 8-12 years NFNT Age Recommendation: Easy Readers (5-9), Middle Grade (7-11)
classmates. She’s working on it with a therapist, but so far Amy is still too nervous to try talking to her peers or raising her hand in class. And that’s before she freezes up during her science presentation and runs to hide in the bathroom.
Jessie is skipping a grade. The problem is, their school only has one fourth-grade classroom. Evan and Jessie are close, but Evan fears that being in the same class will make it obvious that his little sister is, in some ways, smarter than he is. So while Jessie is looking forward to school starting, Evan is dreading it.
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!
will certainly appeal to many readers.
Printer’s apprentice Cinzia has worked for printer Mestra Aronne in the sunny city of Siannerra for almost three years. Mestra has taught her a lot about the printing press, news sources, listening to the city’s talk, and the importance of truth when printing an avvisi, the town news pamphlet. Mestra is certain that Cinzia will be a fine printer someday. But when Cinzia and Mestra are taken to the principessa for something they printed, the principessa says the guards will keep them in jail until she and the magistrate (her brother) figure out what to do with them. The principessa says they’re treasonous for reporting what Mestra says is the truth. But if it’s the truth, why won’t anyone speak up for them?
There are plenty of media-related graphic novels, but Harper Alley seems to have cornered the market on unique properties, mostly YouTube related. This graphic novel combines a popular toy, slime, with a media personality, Karina Garcia, to create a fluffy but fun story.
Cade is a shy, horror-movie-obsessed teen living in rural Texas. Surrounded by homophobia, he figures he’ll never be able to come out as gay, let alone find a boyfriend. Anyway, he has other things to worry about. His family is low on money, so his parents insist that Cade get a summer job at a ranch, which pays better than the more comfortable indoor jobs he would prefer. It’s hard labor, but on the plus side he gets to work with Henry, the teenaged son of the ranch owner. Henry is attractive, mysterious, and possibly interested in Cade. But there are rumors swirling around the ranch. People have died. In fact, the whole situation reminds Cade of a horror movie. Will he be the next victim?
Smith, the creator of the pun-filled Pea Bee and Jay and Giarrusso, artist of the Mini Marvels, team up for a Dog Man/Sponge Bob mash-up, complete with underwater hijinks, supervillains, and flavorful kelp cakes.
