This fourth installment in the Berrybrook series is just as charming and warmhearted as the previous volumes. This one focuses on Felicity, an artist who struggles with time management and deadlines, and with comparisons to her hyper-organized, science-fair winning younger sister. Wanting to prove herself, Felicity joins a competition for kid entrepreneurs. But coming up with a winning idea proves more difficult than she expected, especially when her partner keeps suggesting completely impossible ideas. Also, one of her best friends from elementary school stopped talking to her and now glares daggers at Felicity and she has no idea why. It's hard to keep your head up in middle school with all of the swirling emotions, homework, personal projects, and still maintain high scores in the most popular new online multi-player combat game. But Felicity has the love and support of her family- all she has to do is be willing to ask for help. 

Yakuza member Ken Kanashiro's life is changed when the daughter of the clan leader he works for takes him along to a kpop concert. Ken is moved by the kpop idol group's commitment, hard work, passion, and loyalty to each other and their fans. His introduction to fandom, and new social media friends, bring a breath of fresh air into his violent and dangerous life... and like most fervent fans, he starts trying to convince the people around him to stan the group to greater or lesser success. This manga series is very much in the same tone as Way of the House Husband but I appreciated the slightly longer chapters and the growing ensemble cast. It's a silly concept but with moments of genuine feeling as it shows how loving something can connect you to a whole new community. 

Lady Camembert is the only child of Count Camembert, but as a daughter she cannot inherit unless she marries. She refuses, and after her father's death takes up a different life in the capital city, far from her hometown: she pretends to be the male heir to her father's title. This feels like the perfect solution, except then she meets Princess Brie, and as feelings begin to develop between them, Cam despairs that her secret identity means she can never be anything more than friends with the Princess. This is a beautifully drawn book, sweet and silly, full of cheese puns and historical anachronisms. 

When a group of five teens met in their high school's GSA and formed an impromptu D&D group, none of them suspected the game would last for more than four years! Now in college, balancing jobs, internships, partners, and moves, they have gathered again to play the very end of their oldest campaign. With a hitch: the DM wants to add a new person to the party. The art in this volume is excellent, strong character designs, clean page layouts, and beautiful coloring all support a story of friendship and fantasy. 

Suggs' debut memoir is a complete delight. The themes of language, translation, family, queerness, fatness, and being biracial are beautifully woven together into a rich and authentic whole. Nothing is overstated, simply presented as it was lived, and illustrated in a lovely palette of warm browns, bright golds, and smoothing blues. I loved the tiny avatar of the author's internal thoughts and how it interacted with the text and images on the page. This book uses all of the visual tools of comics to tell a wonderful coming of age story and the result is as sweet as pan dulce. I had the chance to read this book ahead of it's review and I can't recommend it more! 

Claude Cahun lived at the crossroads of masculine and feminine, of artist and activist, of blessed and cursed by the circumstances and time period they were born into. Rowe weaves together historical photos, direct quotes, and lyrical imagery to tell the tale of this brave queer icon to great effect. It's short but very informative, and really filled out my understanding of someone I previously only knew from a few fandom photos that circulate on tumblr. I had the opportunity to blurb this book; look forward to it's release in September 2023! 

A short, easy to read book on historical sustainability and recycling efforts for young readers. Two kids, Charlie and Oliver, are paired together for a science project and end up accidentally taking a time-traveling car made out of trash back in time to Pompeii, ancient Japan, early America, and more, to learn how people in different eras have handled their garbage. A fun, informative introduction to the topic for kids which includes with an example of how to contact legislators.

The power of a supportive role playing group can't fix everything, but it goes a long way. Isaac is a teen with OCD, who suffers from near constant intrusive thoughts, cleverly visualized here as bees with mean voices. Over the story he builds confidence and community by leaning into his love of fantasy and drawing; as a former fellow misfit teen artist, it was wonderful to watch him grow. This is a nuanced and diverse coming of age story, I'm so excited for all of the readers who will discover it and see themselves in it. The art is excellent, both in the real world day to day parts of the story and the D&D fantasy parts of the story. 

A beautifully drawn soft romance set in a utopian Mars colony, a community full of parks, public transit, and cute helpful robots. Clem booked a one way ticket from Earth to work under her intellectual idol, Dr Lin, who works on AI. Clem is initially wowed by her scientist boss, and intregued by her humanoid AI assistant, Kye. But soon the cracks begin to show in Clem's new life- PTSD from an abusive person in her past has followed Clem to Mars; Dr Lin has an ugly temper and doesn't treat Kye as a being with thoughts and feelings; and Kye himself starts to glitch. The color palette of soft reds and blues and the CLAMP manga aesthetic charmed me, as did the hopeful vision of biological and synthetic beings living in harmony. 

A wonderful new alternate-history series with dragons! Anequs lives with her family on the island of Masquapaug; her people have lived through the colonization and invasion of settlers from a white, Norse culture who now have cities, trains, universities, and industry on the mainland of the north-eastern part of America, though countries have different names in this story. Also, every region has its own dragons, though Anequs' people haven't seen one of their native dragons in 200 years, since the Great Dying. When Anequs finds a dragon's egg she initially plans to raise it at home, with all of the songs, dances, and stories of her community. But the Anglish have laws about dragons and one of them is that all future dragoneers must train at an academy; if they don't learn to control their dragon's breath, which can break things down to their elemental parts, the dragon will be killed. This is a very smart and thoughtful alternate history. I loved the indigenous lens, and the fact that Anequs sees through the bullshit rules of her school and doesn't let her self worth be judged by an outside culture. If I have one complain it's that the book had too many made up words; I'm fine with the fact nearly every place had two or three different names, but I didn't need made up names for the periodic table of elements. But I'm still very interested in reading the sequel and to see where this story goes!