Victor is a necromancer, with magic in his blood that lets him cast spells. If anyone finds out, he would be put to death: necromancy is illegal and fanatically persecuted by the religious order that polices the city. And it’s not easy to hide, given that every transaction–from buying a snack to getting married – requires a blood signature, and necromancer blood visibly glows with magic. So Victor keeps to the shadows, solitary except for his cute one-eyed cat, just trying to survive.
Then wealthy young banking heir Enrique makes him an offer: use magic to resurrect his dead bride, and Enrique will use his vast resources to smuggle Victor out of the city to a place where necromancy isn’t illegal, where he can live a normal life. Victor reluctantly agrees, though he isn’t familiar with the spell Enrique instructs him to use. And neither of them expects the result: Enrique’s bride, Mercedes, is resurrected, but her life is bound to Victor’s. If they get too far apart, she’ll die. She has also come back a little… different. For one thing, she has no memories. For another, her beautiful body is now crisscrossed with stitches–and extremely strong. And then there’s the awkward fact that she’s extremely drawn to Victor. Is it just because of the spell, or something more?
Even if Mercedes doesn’t remember him, Enrique isn’t ready to give up on her. And if she can’t be separated from Victor, well, the three of them will just have to stay together. Which might just lead to more romance than any of them was expecting.
Love Me to Death started as a popular Webtoon, inspired by Frankenstein and influenced by Disney films like The Hunchback of Notre Dame. It also reflects the creators’ love for Mexican culture, especially in its lush visuals, which often call to mind Day of the Dead celebrations.
The story revels in cute, often silly romantic tropes. Oops, Mercedes saw Victor shirtless, and he’s hot! Oh no, they tripped and fell on top of each other! People keep mistaking them for a couple! Blushing abounds! There are serious elements to the plot – it’s dangerous to even associate with a necromancer, let alone be one, and also Mercedes is starting to wonder if she might have been murdered. Sometimes the romance, too, is more serious: Victor has major emotional scars, Mercedes is confused and scared by her new situation, and both have trouble believing that someone could want them when most people would consider them monsters. But there’s also lots of humor and sweet moments. There are a few hints in the direction of the three main characters ending up in a polyamorous relationship, but that’s as far as it goes in this volume, though the author’s note at the end confirms that that’s where things are going.
The artwork is colorful and expressive, full of pretty settings and even prettier people. Victor and Enrique are both cute while being very different types, and Mercedes looks like an attractive woman in a very effective “sexy Frankenstein” Halloween costume. (During a costume party, another character basically assumes that’s what she is.) There are a few manga-esque elements, like roses appearing around Enrique when he smiles and characters looking chibi sometimes in funny moments. We see elegant architecture, fun outfits, colorful festival décor, and lots of sparkly magic. This volume also contains a bonus short story about Victor’s past, which is mostly text with just a few illustrations.
Love Me to Death combines an interesting fantasy setting, sympathetic characters, and hefty doses of both angst and humor. Hand it to fans of shojo manga and fantasy romance.
Love Me to Death By Toonimated Little, Brown, 2026 ISBN: 9780316587198
Company Age Rating: 14+
NFNT Age Recommendation: Adult (18+), Older Teen (16-18), Teen (13-16)
Everyone over the age of 30 remembers the TV show Mister Magic. They don’t always agree about what happened on the show—and there’s no way to settle disputes, since no footage from Mister Magic seems to exist anywhere. But they remember how passionately they loved it as children, how they felt like the kids in the show were their friends. And they remember—even if the details are blurry—that it ended thirty years ago in a terrible, violent tragedy.
When Val’s father dies, she feels lost. She’s been living on an isolated ranch since her father brought her here thirty years ago, when she was eight. He’s been paranoid, terrified that something would follow them here, but Val doesn’t know what or why. Then unexpected guests show up at his funeral. Val doesn’t remember anything from before she arrived at the ranch, but these people claim they were her childhood friends and costars on the show Mister Magic. They do seem deeply familiar, and Val is desperate to learn more about her past, so she agrees to leave with them. They’re headed to the remote desert town where the show was filmed, where they will be interviewed for a podcast.
Once they reach the desert town of Bliss, Utah, things just keep getting stranger and more threatening. The entire town is extremely invested in the show Mister Magic. They’re all angry at Val for something she can’t remember. And they want something from Val and her new/old friends—something they’ll do anything to get.
This is a graphic adaptation of Kiersten White’s horror novel Mister Magic. It’s smart and creepy, playing with themes of memory, nostalgia, and trauma, as well as the desire to protect children and how we try to do that. Interspersed through the book are memos, emails, and websites about Mister Magic—including fake pages from real sites like Wikipedia and Reddit—which add to the feeling of the story being real and contemporary. And indeed, some of the book’s horror is inspired by reality. Our protagonists find themselves returning to an isolated community bent on controlling and molding children to fit their narrow, patriarchal ideal. We see how this community shaped the lives of Val’s castmates, pushing heterosexuality, marriage, and parenthood on them regardless of how badly those concepts sometimes fit. The author has confirmed in interviews that this is a reference to conservative religions, particularly the Church of Latter-Day Saints, which White left as an adult because of the church’s increasingly homophobic views.
For most of the book, the visuals are straightforward and realistic. The art is dynamic and natural, and the flashback scenes feature some delightfully nineties-TV aesthetics. Those flashbacks also have a looser, more fanciful style that evokes both the fact that they are childhood memories and the possibility that real magic was involved. As the story progresses and the supernatural elements close in on the protagonists, the more magical style reappears more often.
As far as content, this book includes some swearing, icky sexism, creepiness, and children in danger, but nothing too dire, especially for a horror novel aimed at adults. There are a couple of kisses and a few comments on female characters’ bodies, but no other sexual content. Mister Magic delivers an eerie and fascinating premise, flawed and sympathetic characters, and a pace that makes it easy to keep reading. Hand it to fans of inventively creepy vibes and to readers who like horror in which—spoilers—things mostly turn out okay.
Mister Magic the Graphic Novel By Kiersten White, and Scott Peterson Art by Veronica Fish, and Andy Fish Ten Speed Press, 2026 ISBN: 9781984863355
Cassie doesn’t have much of an in-person social life. Her former best friend, Bennett, can’t stand her now, and she doesn’t fit in at school or at the church events her mom keeps pushing her to attend. Cassie’s friends are all online, where they bond over their passion for the show Riverview. The Riverview fandom loves Cassie’s fanfiction, which features an original character named Jessica. Jessica is a fun, cool, beautiful vampire girl who is good at everything and liked by everyone – a classic Mary Sue.
Jessica is fiction, obviously. Cassie created her. But one day, Bennett is picking on Cassie when who should jump to her defense but a very real Jessica, fangs and all.
How is this possible? Jessica explains that all Mary Sues exist in their own realm, Mary Sue World, and they go hopping through different versions of reality anytime someone writes them into a new story. For a character like Jessica, Cassie’s “real” reality is just one of many where she might make an appearance. And while she’s visiting, she wants to help Cassie channel some of the confident, positive energy that she wrote Jessica to have.
Unfortunately, there’s another Mary Sue in town, and she’s not nearly as nice as Jessica. Which maybe isn’t surprising, given who created her: Bennett. Now this dangerous newcomer is targeting both Cassie and Bennett. To beat her, they will have to work together, get some help from Mary Sue World, and embrace the weird and beautiful realm of Internet fandom.
This is a smart, zany book celebrating the creativity and connection of fan culture. In particular, it is a defense of the Mary Sue. This character archetype in fanfiction has long been maligned as cringey wish-fulfillment, a way for the writer to insert an impossibly cool and hypercompetent version of herself into the story. But as Jessica points out (and other writers have noted), plenty of canonical characters—especially male ones – are just as hypercompetent and cool, and yet few people dismiss Batman or James Bond as “Gary Stus” (the much-less-commonly-discussed male form of Mary Sue). And any character can be written well or badly, regardless of whether they fit the Mary Sue description.
The fandom love continues with a series of interviews sprinkled between the chapters, in which the book’s creators talk about their own history and engagement with fan culture. They rave about their favorite tropes and tags, their first OTPs, and more. Here, and in the book’s main text, we see the joy that online fandom brings and the way it connects people, some of whom might never meet in person. As a fun visual touch, the pages with these interviews are styled to look like old websites.
The art is dynamic and expressive, and brought to us by Lisa Sterle, the illustrator of the popular Modern Witch Tarot deck. The settings are full of lived-in detail, and the characters look natural in their movements and postures. The color palette has a base of realistic earth tones, but includes pops of vibrant, 80s-esque purples, pinks, and teals, especially once Jessica shows up. The colors also help to establish the different settings, whether it’s a sepia-toned flashback, the gray-blues of a Star Trek ship in Mary Sue World, or the electronic landscape of the Digital Sea.
As a love letter to fandom, this book will be best appreciated by readers who are already at least a little familiar with the tropes and terms. Hand it to creators of fanfic or fanart, cosplayers, and anyone else who takes their passion for a fandom and runs with it.
Mary Sue By Meghan Fitzmartin Art by Lisa Sterle BOOM! Box, 2026 ISBN: 9798892158855
NFNT Age Recommendation: Adult (18+), Older Teen (16-18) Creator Representation: Bisexual,
Jade is a hot-tempered teenaged aristocrat in modern-day France. Her family has prestige but no money, so Jade’s mom keeps pushing her to cozy up to her wealthier peers—and, ideally, marry one of them. But Jade is focused on her secret passion: serious weightlifting.
In fact, Jade has already made so much progress with her lifting that it can be hard to hide her strength. Like when she gets mad at a boorish young rich boy at a party and sort of… launches him into the refreshments table. Society would never approve of her lifting weights, so Jade scrambles to explain her feat of strength before blurting out that she must have been overcome by… love!
Jade’s matchmaking mother is, of course, thrilled. She would be a lot less thrilled to know that the only boy Jade actually likes is a groom in a rich family’s stables—a groom with huge muscles, whose workout routine Jade is determined to discover. Not that Jade has time for romance anyway – she’s juggling friends and frenemies, high school and high society events, all while keeping her weightlifting a secret. But with multiple boys now pursuing her, romance may be in Jade’s future whether she’s ready for it or not.
Originally a successful French webcomic (Colossale), Colossal is a fun rom-com with a shojo manga vibe and an oddball premise that grabs your attention. Who would expect the feisty young socialite to be obsessed with weightlifting? But Jade’s passion for lifting isn’t just a weird quirk: the story weaves it into her backstory and the way she thinks. Jade can be impulsive and irritable, though she usually keeps her temper in check. Early in the book, she sometimes imagines using her huge strength to punch people she finds annoying, which feels a little extreme, but Jade stops doing it after the first few scenes. She often fumbles social situations, but she cares about her friends and doing the right thing.
The rest of the cast has plenty of personality, too. There’s thoughtful Alexander, the groom Jade likes, who is much more than an enviable set of muscles; his employer, a rich mean girl who is struggling to fit into high society; the handsome but unpleasant rich boy who becomes far more interested in Jade after she pitches him into a buffet; Jade’s new friend, a do-gooder who convinces Jade to help with a charity function; and a cute but ruthless boy who discovers Jade’s weightlifting secret and demands she train him. There are also various family members and Jade’s supportive and quirky weightlifting buddies.
The art style is grounded in realism but with touches of a more fanciful shojo manga style. It focuses on the characters, giving them expressive (sometimes comically exaggerated) faces and postures. Their outfits change frequently to fit the occasion as the plot romps through lively scenarios and settings: riding lessons from Alexander, a stag hunt, preparing and staging a costumed charity ball, working out at the gym, hosting a sleepover, and more. Backgrounds are mostly minimal, with just enough detail to establish the settings.
There is no nudity (though Alexander sometimes gets shirtless for non-sexual reasons), but there are a few references to sex and a few swear words. Mostly, though, the story is funny and silly, with some heartfelt moments and sweet emotional connections between characters. Hand it to fans of rom-coms and shojo manga who like the sound of the premise.
Colossal By Rutile Willcox Art by Diane Truc Abrams, 2026 ISBN: 9781419777813
Company Age Rating: 14-18
NFNT Age Recommendation: Older Teen (16-18), Teen (13-16) Creator Representation: French, Mauritian, Character Representation: French,
Amu Hinamora sometimes feels like an anxious mess, but seen from the outside, she’s popular and cool. It helps that she’s one of the Guardians: rare kids who have tiny magical companions called Guardian Characters, which grant special powers. In fact, where most Guardians have a single Guardian Character each, Amu has four. Perhaps it’s no surprise that she is chosen for a special mission: unraveling a mystery at a prestigious but strange middle school called Arcana Academy.
In the world of Shugo Chara!, every child has an egg in their heart that represents an ideal version of themselves that they want to be. Most children never discover their eggs, but some rare eggs hatch into tiny chibi people called Guardian Characters. Guardian Characters mostly hang around offering commentary, but they can also help their Guardians transform into powered-up versions of themselves.
Arcana Academy has a problem: students are losing confidence in themselves, which can turn their eggs into X Eggs. These hatch into not heroic and helpful Guardian Characters but mischievous and dangerous X Characters. As a Guardian, Amu specializes in restoring X Eggs. That’s her main mission at Arcana Academy, but she also has a secret assignment: to learn about the Academy’s powerful treasures, the Arcana Jewels.
This is a cute adventure with lots of humor. Amu is an entertaining protagonist: since readers can see her thought bubbles, we know when, beneath her Cool Girl exterior, she’s confused or panicking or paying less attention to her mission than to her crush’s cute school uniform. Her four Guardian Characters can also see her thoughts, and they have lots to say about them, which is often funny.
Guardian Characters are a fun element: each one represents an aspirational version of their Guardian, often in an over-the-top way. For instance, Amu’s crush has a princely, chivalrous personality; his Guardian Character is an actual king who gives him the ability to transform into a monarch in full regalia and use a defensive power called Holy Crown. Amu’s four Guardian Characters have personas ranging from artistic to athletic, and enable her to transform into four different superpowered versions of herself.
The supporting cast adds to the fun. There’s Amu’s crush, whose sweet personality contrasts humorously with his tyrannical Guardian Character. Another Arcana student, Niya, is a video streamer with a pair of cat ears (thanks to his Guardian Character being an anthropomorphic cat), lots of silly energy, and a crush on Amu. Amu’s new roommate is so shy and quiet that for awhile Amu doesn’t realize there is another person in her room at all.
The Guardians’ transformations and magical powers have major magical girl vibes, complete with elaborate outfits. The art throughout the manga is rich with detail, from the gothic architecture of Arcana Academy to the flowers, stars, bubbles, and sparkles sprinkled through the backgrounds. Playing card suits are a major theme: Arcana Academy’s four dorms are Heart Tower, Diamond Tower, Spade Tower, and Clover Tower, and are decorated with the corresponding symbols (“clover” being clubs). The four suits also appear on Amu’s four Guardian Characters and seem to be connected to the Arcana Jewels.
At the end of this volume is a collection of translation notes to clarify elements of the story that are otherwise hard to translate. For instance, the headmaster of Arcana Academy uses a Japanese counting word that implies that Guardian Characters are objects, while everyone else counts them using the word that is used for people. The notes offer a fascinating glimpse into the differences between Japanese and English and the ways translators try to bridge them.
There is a brief introduction to the main cast and the concept of Guardian Characters at the beginning of the book—a helpful reference, especially for readers new to Shugo Chara! With a new setting and largely new cast, this volume can stand alone or serve as an entry point to the series, though new readers may get a sense they are missing a little bit of context. Still, the story holds up well on its own as a light, fun magical-girl-style adventure.
Shugo Chara! Jewel Joker By Peach-Pit Kodansha, 2026 ISBN: 9798888777107
Orange Grove Junior High just held its graduation ceremony, and now it’s officially summer vacation. For some of the newly-minted rising ninth graders, the summer is off to a rocky start. Rose is disappointed to realize that she went through junior high without making much of an impression—no one seems to even remember her name. Best friends Juhi and Liv just had a huge fight—maybe even a friend breakup. Paul just wants to game and be left alone, but his parents are making him attend a pool party thrown by classmate Dustin. Paul’s popular cousin Maya will be there, too—her mom is forcing her to go and apologize for semi-accidentally humiliating Dustin in a viral video.
Dustin thought inviting the whole graduating class to a pool party might help him shake off his reputation as a loser. But it seemed like no one was interested, and then Maya’s video came out and made Dustin feel worse than ever. Now he just wants to hide. Then guests start arriving: Paul and Maya, plus a gaggle of Maya’s friends. Juhi and Liv, who are still fighting. Rose, who is determined to finally make an impression on her classmates. Emotions are high, and Orange Grove’s recent graduates are running wild. For some of them, what happens at this party will change everything.
Last Day Pool Party reads like watching a summery tween movie. The characters have enough unusual details to keep them from being flat, but they are familiar: the social outcast looking to prove himself, the wallflower desperate to be noticed, the best friends rocked by a major fight, the popular girl wondering if she’s become someone she doesn’t want to be. The focus shifts between these characters, following them from the pool deck crowded with an audience of fellow students to the living room where Paul is determined to ignore everyone and play video games to Dustin’s bedroom for an impromptu makeover scene to a bathroom where two characters go to hide and end up having a heart-to-heart. The characters’ stories start out separate but eventually converge in a cinematically dramatic climax, then stay mingled together as they sort things out afterward.
The art is fun, vibrant, and colorful. The cast features a variety of races and body types as well as wildly different personalities, which are highlighted by their expressive faces and dynamic body language. The main setting—Dustin’s house, inside and out – is well established and feels solid and consistent, like the set of a play, with the same locations hosting different characters throughout the party. Bright colors add to the sunny, summery feel.
This is a funny and ultimately optimistic story exploring lots of topics of interest to young readers: making and keeping friendships, discovering and developing your own identity, apologizing and forgiving. It is also a bouncy, quick read with lots of slightly over-the-top but relatable characters. Hand it to middle schoolers who want a fun romp with drama, humor, and heart.
Last Day Pool Party By Emma Steinkellner Labyrinth Road, 2026 ISBN: 9798217031429
Company Age Rating: 8-12
NFNT Age Recommendation: Middle Grade (7-11), Tween (10-13)
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
Princess Alya is sure she’s a disappointment to her warrior queen mother. Dubbed “the Ordinary Princess,” she’s not especially skilled at combat or at magic. So when the royal traveling party is attacked, and the queen badly wounded, the best Alya can do is run away. Unfortunately, she can’t outrun the attackers’ magic, and now she is under a curse: during the day, she turns into a goat, and only returns to human form at night.
Trill is a goatherd from a remote mountain village. She wants to see the world and be a hero, but how can she do that when her strongest magical skill is the ability to communicate with goats? Trill’s magic does come in handy, though, especially when she meets a determined princess-turned-goat on a mission.
With the queen still recovering from her injuries and Princess Alya missing, a usurper has taken over. Alya needs to get to the palace and reclaim her throne. Trill agrees to help. The two (metaphorically) butt heads sometimes on their travels, but grow to like and respect each other – and maybe even more than that.
Meanwhile, traveling incognito means Alya hears the common people’s views on the royal family – and they’re not great. Even if she and Trill can reach the palace and overthrow the usurper, will the people accept the Ordinary Princess as their ruler? Can she find a way to fix the harm her family has caused? All of which might be a moot point, because if they don’t break the curse soon, Alya will be stuck as a goat forever.
This is a fun adventure with two brave, goodhearted heroines and a fascinating fantasy world. The setting has lots of unusual details, from the distinctive clothing and hairstyles to the giant goats kept by the mountain folk to the wildlife and food. The story, too, has depth. Alya is unaware of how the royal family has been gatekeeping the use of magic, and how that has impacted the common people; she has to really grapple with how to make it right.
The artwork is clear and uncluttered, with a soft color palette heavy on the earth tones. The characters are rendered simply, without a lot of fine detail, and their postures can sometimes look a little stiff, but they are expressive and easy to follow. The backgrounds – sweeping mountain landscapes, unusual architecture, bustling cities – have more complexity, though not enough to look mismatched or jarring. They also include interesting plants and creatures, making for an immersive fantasy world.
Content-wise, the story includes some brief violence, but very little blood and no deaths. There is some discussion of systemic violence and oppression. There is a very light romance with a single kiss at the end.
There is some fun back matter, including conceptual sketches of the characters and world as well as a step-by-step demo of how a page goes from thumbnail sketch to final version.
Goat Magic has action, heart, and some nifty fantasy worldbuilding. The stakes are too high and the danger too frequent to call it “cozy,” but it is perhaps cozy-adjacent, and will likely appeal to fans of gentle fantasy like The Baker and the Bard and the Tea Dragon series. The interesting fantasy setting, heroic quest, and political complexity may also appeal to fans of the Avatar: the Last Airbender series.
Goat Magic By Kate Wheeler Oni Press, 2025 ISBN: 9781637158050
Company Age Rating: 8-12
NFNT Age Recommendation: Middle Grade (7-11), Tween (10-13) Creator Representation: Queer, Character Representation: Queer,
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)
Victor is a necromancer, with magic in his blood that lets him cast spells. If anyone finds out, he would be put to death: necromancy is illegal and fanatically persecuted by the religious order that polices the city. And it’s not easy to hide, given that every transaction–from buying a snack to getting married – requires a blood signature, and necromancer blood visibly glows with magic. So Victor keeps to the shadows, solitary except for his cute one-eyed cat, just trying to survive.
agree about what happened on the show—and there’s no way to settle disputes, since no footage from Mister Magic seems to exist anywhere. But they remember how passionately they loved it as children, how they felt like the kids in the show were their friends. And they remember—even if the details are blurry—that it ended thirty years ago in a terrible, violent tragedy.
Cassie doesn’t have much of an in-person social life. Her former best friend, Bennett, can’t stand her now, and she doesn’t fit in at school or at the church events her mom keeps pushing her to attend. Cassie’s friends are all online, where they bond over their passion for the show Riverview. The Riverview fandom loves Cassie’s fanfiction, which features an original character named Jessica. Jessica is a fun, cool, beautiful vampire girl who is good at everything and liked by everyone – a classic Mary Sue.
her to cozy up to her wealthier peers—and, ideally, marry one of them. But Jade is focused on her secret passion: serious weightlifting.
Guardians: rare kids who have tiny magical companions called Guardian Characters, which grant special powers. In fact, where most Guardians have a single Guardian Character each, Amu has four. Perhaps it’s no surprise that she is chosen for a special mission: unraveling a mystery at a prestigious but strange middle school called Arcana Academy.
rising ninth graders, the summer is off to a rocky start. Rose is disappointed to realize that she went through junior high without making much of an impression—no one seems to even remember her name. Best friends Juhi and Liv just had a huge fight—maybe even a friend breakup. Paul just wants to game and be left alone, but his parents are making him attend a pool party thrown by classmate Dustin. Paul’s popular cousin Maya will be there, too—her mom is forcing her to go and apologize for semi-accidentally humiliating Dustin in a viral video.
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.
at combat or at magic. So when the royal traveling party is attacked, and the queen badly wounded, the best Alya can do is run away. Unfortunately, she can’t outrun the attackers’ magic, and now she is under a curse: during the day, she turns into a goat, and only returns to human form at night.
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!
