By Maureen Tai, 22 April 2024 In this charming, engaging and insightful chapter book for younger readers (ages 6-9), we meet Tola, a little Nigerian girl with a big heart. She lives in Lagos with her siblings, Moji, who is very clever, and Dapo, who is very hard-working, and with her grandmother, who is very loving but also very strict. The family relies on Dapo’s earnings as a mechanic for all their necessities, yet Tola finds pleasure in many things – eating, learning, doing her homework, and being with her family. One day, Tola’s life is turned upside down as the pandemic spreads to Africa ..read more

By Maureen Tai, 11 April 2024 In middle-grade verse novel, No Matter The Distance (ages 8+), eleven-year-old Penny Rooney begins her spring break thinking about the poetry slam competition that’s just been announced, the theme of which is “What I Know About Myself.” Penny knows a lot about her best friend Cricket (brainiac and space enthusiast), her older sister Liana (music lover and nickname generator), and cystic fibrosis (the genetic disorder she was born with). But does Penny know anything about herself? Out of the blue, a silvery dolphin appears in the creek next to her home, separated ..read more

By Maureen Tai, 16 January 2024 Can you lose your way in an unknown place and end up finding yourself? This is what happens in Lost in Taiwan (ages 12+), an exquisite ode to the island, in graphic novel form. Paul, an angst-ridden, screen-addicted American high-schooler finds himself lost in the town of Changbei, Taiwan, without his phone and without any Mandarin language skills. Luckily, he is saved by an unexpected new friend. Bubbly, scooter-riding Peijing takes Paul under her wing, showing him – and readers – a side of Taiwan that is rarely seen, and challenging Paul’s Western ethnocentri ..read more

By Maureen Tai, 9 January 2024 In this humorous and heart-warming middle-grade graphic memoir, a first time for everything, Dan Santat recounts the life-changing and awkward “firsts” of his middle school life: first time being ridiculed, first party, first school trip to Europe, first Fanta, and of course, first love. It is impossible not to get swept into Dan’s story, and to root for the hapless and quiet “good boy” as he navigates complicated relationships in a European setting in the late 1980s: the illustrations are rich with action, expression and detail and the storytelling is masterful ..read more

By Maureen Tai, 12 October 2023 We wouldn’t normally review another book in a series but Black (ages 8+), even though it proclaims itself as Book II to Brown (which we read, loved and reviewed several years ago), stands very much on its own two feet, thank you very much. This middle grade, heavily-illustrated, realistic fiction book is about the well-meaning but slightly dim-witted Jack, who becomes smitten with an alluring, yet standoffish newcomer to his town. In a bid to win the heart of his Lady Love, Jack concocts a dubious plan involving the theft of the Mayor’s prizewinning chicken. As ..read more

By Maureen Tai, 17 September 2023 There’s a lot to like about Mexikid, a graphic memoir (ages 10+) about Pedro, a American boy of Mexican heritage, and his big family (11 members in all, enough for a full mariachi band as wryly observed by a waiter in the novel). The illustrations: energetic and boldly coloured, largely in comic-style but also in realistic, swirling watercolours. The characters: engaging, relatable and so well-developed that even though there are so many of them, you don’t ever feel lost or confused. The setting: the pre-Internet days of late 1970s America/Mexico, peppered wi ..read more

By Maureen Tai, 5 October 2023 You’d be forgiven for spotting the resemblance of the heroine in Suee and the Shadow (ages 10+) to the titular character in the hit Netflix series, Wednesday, except that the deliciously creepy graphic novel was published 5 years earlier. Suee says she’s a normal 12 year-old with (mostly) exemplary grades and sophisticated vocabulary but it quickly becomes clear that she’s different. Taciturn, opinionated, world-weary, a self-made loner who can’t wait for the end of her first semester in her new elementary school. But a strange voice lures Suee into a lonely exh ..read more

By Maureen Tai, 28 September 2023 The Only Child (ages 4+), the debut wordless graphic novel by Chinese illustrator Guojing, was inspired by her own experience growing up in the days of China’s one child policy. The masterful, atmospheric and haunting pencil drawings tell the story of a little girl who spends many of her days alone. After looking at photographs of happier times on a cold, wintry day, she decides to embark on a solo journey to her grandmother’s house, a place of warmth and birthday cake. The giddy look of wonder on the girl’s face turns to anguished tears as she realises she’s ..read more

By Maureen Tai, 12 September 2023 Who doesn’t love stories about random acts of kindness, gestures that belie the inhumanity that our species is so often capable of? And who doesn’t love these stories when they are based on reality, and accompanied by delightfully bold, rustic-coloured illustrations? Kafka and the Doll (ages 4-8 years) is such a picture book, a masterful imagining of the chance meeting between the legendary Czech writer, Franz Kafka, and a little girl. The grief-stricken girl has lost her doll and is crying in a park. Instead of turning a blind eye, Kafka tells the girl that ..read more