A lovely, gentle fantasy.
A young child accustomed to Tea Dragons discovers a real one in this companion story to The Tea Dragon Society (2017).
In the mountain village of Silverleaf, there is a festival dedicated to the Tea Dragons that live among the villagers. Everyone cares for the diminutive creatures and shares the tea they provide. One day Rinn comes across a real dragon asleep in the woods. Waking, Aedhan shifts into humanoid form and explains he was tasked with protecting Silverleaf but fell asleep for 80 years. Rinn decides to cheer up the chagrined Aedhan by introducing him to the villagers and the work they do. While visiting Silverleaf, Rinn’s uncle Erik and his antlered bounty-hunting partner, Hesekiel, seek out the mysterious mythical creature that caused Aedhan’s deep sleep. As preparations for the Tea Dragon Festival continue, Aedhan helps Rinn discover their role in the community while in return Rinn helps him make up for lost time. Erik and Hesekiel are familiar characters, reintroduced here at a different time of their lives. O’Neill has once again created a diverse set of characters of varying appearances, abilities, skin colors, orientations, and gender identities—Rinn is non-binary. Silverleaf embodies the word community: beings working together in harmony, using one another’s strengths to help and support one another. True to her characteristic style, the charming, full-color panels bring to life this feel-good middle-grade tale of community and purpose.
A lovely, gentle fantasy. (Graphic fantasy. 7-11)Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-62010-655-6
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Oni Press
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2019
Silly and inventive fast-paced fun
A zippy graphic-novel series opener featuring two comically bumbling reptile detectives.
As agents of SUIT (Special Undercover Investigation Team) with customized VESTs (Very Exciting Spy Technology) boasting the latest gadgetry, the bright green InvestiGators Mango and Brash receive their newest assignment. The reptilian duo must go undercover at the Batter Down bakery to find missing mustachioed Chef Gustavo and his secret recipes. Before long, the pair find themselves embroiled in a strange and busy plot with a scientist chicken, a rabid were-helicopter, an escape-artist dinosaur, and radioactive cracker dough. Despite the great number of disparate threads, Green manages to tie up most neatly, leaving just enough intrigue for subsequent adventures. Nearly every panel has a joke, including puns (“gator done!”), poop jokes, and pop-culture references (eagle-eyed older readers will certainly pick up on the 1980s song references), promising to make even the most stone-faced readers dissolve into giggles. Green’s art is as vibrant as an overturned box of crayons and as highly spirited as a Saturday-morning cartoon. Fast pacing and imaginative plotting (smattered with an explosion here, a dance number there) propel the action through a whimsical world in which a diverse cast of humans live alongside anthropomorphized reptiles and dinosaurs. With its rampant good-natured goofiness and its unrelenting fizz and pep, this feels like a sugar rush manifested as a graphic novel.
Silly and inventive fast-paced fun . (Graphic fantasy. 7-10)Pub Date: Feb. 25, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-21995-4
Page Count: 208
Publisher: First Second
Review Posted Online: Nov. 23, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
Epic lunacy.
Will extragalactic rats eat the moon?
Can a cybernetic toenail clipper find a worthy purpose in the vast universe? Will the first feline astronaut ever get a slice of pizza? Read on. Reworked from the Live Cartoon series of homespun video shorts released on Instagram in 2020 but retaining that “we’re making this up as we go” quality, the episodic tale begins with the electrifying discovery that our moon is being nibbled away. Off blast one strong, silent, furry hero—“Meow”—and a stowaway robot to our nearest celestial neighbor to hook up with the imperious Queen of the Moon and head toward the dark side, past challenges from pirates on the Sea of Tranquility and a sphinx with a riddle (“It weighs a ton, but floats on air. / It’s bald but has a lot of hair.” The answer? “Meow”). They endure multiple close but frustratingly glancing encounters with pizza and finally deliver the malign, multiheaded Rat King and its toothy armies to a suitable fate. Cue the massive pizza party! Aside from one pirate captain and a general back on Earth, the human and humanoid cast in Harris’ loosely drawn cartoon panels, from the appropriately moon-faced queen on, is light skinned. Merch, music, and the original episodes are available on an associated website.
Epic lunacy. (Graphic science fiction. 8-11)Pub Date: May 10, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-308408-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 8, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2026 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
