Today I’ve got a mix of comics—mostly for kids, though there’s one that is definitely not intended for kids, too.
Detective Sweet Pea: The Case of the Golden Bone by Sara Varon
This is the start of a new series by Sara Varon, the artist behind books like Robot Dreams and Sweater Weather. Like many of her other books, this one is populated by animals. Sweet Pea is a dog, and she’s excited to welcome a couple of new dogs who have moved to Parkville to join the dog choir, but also to see the Golden Chew Bone. It’s an artifact usually kept in the museum courtyard, and dogs gather there to chew on this bone that mysteriously never gets any smaller. The bone has been on loan to another city’s museum, but then during the celebration of its return, it goes missing!
Sweet Pea is recruited to help track down the bone. Although she isn’t a detective when the book opens, she’s known for her keen nose (which she usually uses to track down treats in garbage cans) and she puts it to work. Who would want to steal the bone? Is it that raccoon who’s always sneaking around at night? Is it Otto the dog, who always has suspiciously shiny teeth? Sweet Pea needs to figure out the mystery soon, because all the dogs in town are getting toothaches!
It’s a somewhat silly story but there are some clues here and there that eventually lead Sweet Pea to the Golden Chew Bone, establishing her reputation as a detective, so I’m guessing we may see her again in the future solving some more mysteries.
Table Titans Club Volume 1 by Scott Kurtz
Valeria is starting at a new school, and her mom hopes that this time maybe she can avoid getting into fights. But it’s not always easy making new friends: Valeria is obsessed with fantasy and can be pretty intense, and we’ve already established that she has a quick temper. Then she meets a couple kids from the Table Titans, a tabletop roleplaying club. Alan, Andrew, and Darius aren’t all sure about Valeria at first, but she dives into it with gusto. Unfortunately, their sponsor teacher is going to be taking a leave of absence, so the club is going to be canceled unless they find a new sponsor. Can they convince Coach Bitner to sponsor the club?
The book isn’t long, but it manages to pack a whole lot of character development in: aside from Alan, Andrew, and Darius, we also meet Kate, a popular girl who has an instant dislike for Val, though Val has no idea why. Val’s mission to save the Table Titans presents many different challenges, including learning to manage her anger so she doesn’t get in trouble once again.
Table Titans Club was a very fun story and I really enjoyed getting to know the various kids. I liked the way we could see things the way Val imagines them, putting herself in a fantasy setting or picturing herself as a bear, and when the kids are playing the RPG it switches to a fantasy version of them. Scott Kurtz is perhaps best known for his webcomic PvP, which ran for twenty-four years; I remember reading it way back in the day but had lost track of it, and was amazed to learn that Kurtz had continued it through 2022. (I may have to go back and do some catching up!) From what I can tell, Table Titans Club is a prequel to Table Titans (featuring several of these characters playing an RPG when they’re a bit older?), which itself was a spinoff of PvP. This book is written for a kid audience, and I’m looking forward to seeing more of this series and sharing it with my daughter.
Protector of the Small Book 1: First Test written by Tamora Pierce, graphic novel adaptation by Devin Grayson and Becca Farrow
I’ll admit: I haven’t actually read any of Tamora Pierce’s novels despite the fact that we’ve had several of them on the shelf for a while—my wife read them when she was younger and has read some of them to our kids. When this comic book adaptation came across my desk, I figured I’d give it a shot.
Keladry of Minelan wants to be a knight, but everything seems set against her. She’s the first girl to openly seek training in Tortall, and the training master decides she will need to be on probation for her first year. Despite the unfairness—boys do not have a probationary year in their training—Kel goes through with it, and immediately faces bullying from several of the boys. The training master, in the meantime, grudgingly begins to see how determined and hard-working Kel is.
It’s an inspiring story about overcoming hardships and about not letting people stop you simply because you’re a girl. The comic book version isn’t long—it definitely feels like a lot must have been abridged from the original novel to cut it down to size a little. The hazing that Kel (and one of the other new arrivals) are put through is frustrating, particularly the way that Kel is told she can’t ever snitch on anyone if she gets in a fight: it’s one of the ways she earns some respect but something about that still feels wrong to me, the adults accepting these obviously false excuses any time a kid turns up with black eyes and bruises. Overall, though, the comic made me want to explore the world of Tortall a bit more, so maybe I’ll get around to those novels after all.
Ash’s Cabin by Jen Wang
Ash is going through some changes. Their name, for one: they’ve just changed it to Ash a month ago, cut their hair short (to their parents’ dismay). They’re really looking forward to their family vacation—every year they go spend time on their aunt and uncle’s ranch, which used to belong to Grandpa Edwin before he passed away. Things aren’t going great at home and Ash is really looking forward to getting away from everyone. But then after a lousy day at school, Ash gets some lousy news: they’re not going to the ranch. Instead, they’re going to Disneyland—the opposite of where Ash wants to be.
Ash makes a plan: Grandpa Edwin had told stories about building a secret cabin out in the forest, and Ash plans to go look for it. They get permission to stay at the ranch with an older cousin, but actually spend the summer preparing to live out in the forest with their dog, Chase, to see if they can find the cabin and move into it.
Ash’s Cabin really spoke to me, because I could see a lot of my middle kid in Ash. It seemed apparent to me that Ash was starting to think about transitioning. (Note: for most of the book, Ash is referred to with “she/her” pronouns, but near the end they decide to use “they/them” so that’s what I’ve used here.) My kid is trans and has often had some difficulty connecting with his peers, sometimes because he feels they don’t take some things seriously. And there are definitely times he’d rather just be far away from the city and from people—the idea of living in a little cabin in the forest where nobody could bother him definitely has its appeals. Ash soon finds that surviving on your own is tough, though, and taking care of a big dog adds another layer of difficulty. Ash isn’t able to leave civilization behind permanently, but it’s still a profound experience.
I really appreciated this portrayal, and it’s a book I immediately shared with my son because it feels like being seen and being understood. Just recently I heard a radio interview with Jelani Memory, the founder of A Kids Book About, which publishes books for young readers that tackle tough subjects. He said one of the most powerful things about books is the way they can let kids know that they aren’t alone—that other people share their experiences. For much of the book, Ash feels alone even when they’re around other people, and while there isn’t a Hollywood everything-works-out ending, it does feel like there’s some hope, that Ash has started to find their people.
Hope It All Works Out! by Reza Farazmand
If you enjoy the Poorly Drawn Lines webcomic (note! not always kid-friendly), you’ll love this collection. All the usual suspects are there: Mouse, Turtle, Bird, Snail, Kevin, and more. They’re passive-aggressive, aggressive-aggressive, depressed, delusional, and very funny. There are a lot of jokes about struggling to figure life out, and the fact that most of these characters are usually failing at it. The collection includes many new comics that haven’t been published before, so even if you follow the webcomic faithfully there’s something for you here! Hope It All Works Out! will be published next month.
My Current Stack
I just finished reading 2040: A Silicon Valley Satire by Pedro Domingos as the start of my AI-related stack that I mentioned last week. This one’s about the first robot presidential candidate of the US, and it’s a fairly short one. Next up I think I’ll dive back into AI 2041 by Kai-Fu Lee and Chen Qiufan, a collection of short fiction paired with essays explaining the science and tech behind the stories. And then maybe after that I’ll try 2102: Pretense, the Play by William E. Jefferson to see what a theologian makes of a future with AI.
Disclosure: I received review copies of these books. Affiliate links to Bookshop.org help support my writing and independent booksellers.
