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Nicole Brinkley

Children's & YAPicture BookChildren's

Mole is Not Alone

Review by Nicole Brinkley

Mole is not the sort of animal who likes big crowds. Mole’s idea of a fun time involves digging tunnels and working on construction projects. So when Mole gets invited to Rabbit’s birthday party, his anxiety spikes. For a critter used to spending time alone, a crowded party is going to be too much.

But supporting friends is more important than nerves, so Mole prepares Rabbit’s favorite dessert and heads to the party. However, Mole’s twisting journey through the tunnels is spent fretting, and when he finally arrives at Rabbit’s door, he is too nervous to knock. Then Skunk arrives, who isn’t a big fan of crowds either. Together, they build up the courage to knock on Rabbit’s door.

It’s not unusual for small children to fret about crowds, especially ones containing strangers. Maya Tatsukawa’s Mole Is Not Alone will help shy kids realize that they’re not alone. Mole’s anxieties around sharing space with so many other animals—even those considered friends—are clearly conveyed through text written entirely as speech bubbles from Mole.

Created through a combination of stencils, stamps, paint and digital illustration, Tatsukawa’s charming art includes many small details that will allow children to pore over each page in search of something new about their favorite animal characters. There’s even a two-page spread of a maze that readers can complete to help Mole move from one tunnel to the next.

Sweet and cozy—much like the cream puffs Mole makes—Mole Is Not Alone lends itself well to both storytime read-alouds and quiet snuggles before bed. Fans of Yeorim Yoon and Jian Kim’s It’s OK, Slow Lizard and Cori Doerrfeld’s The Rabbit Listened will want to add this to their shelves.

Sweet and cozy—much like the cream puffs Mole makes—Mole Is Not Alone lends itself well to both storytime read-alouds and quiet snuggles before bed.
NonfictionGraphic MemoirsFamily & Relationships

This Country

Review by Nicole Brinkley

In 2016, New Yorker cartoonist Navied Mahdavian and his wife needed a change, so they packed up their lives and fled—with their dog—from San Francisco to a cabin in rural Idaho. Despite not knowing what wood best keeps houses warm in frigid winters or how to stop a car from freezing during snowstorms, Mahdavian couldn’t help but want his version of the millennial American dream: living off the land in a house you own while building a career as an artist.

Most of Mahdavian’s debut graphic memoir This Country: Searching for Home in (Very) Rural America takes place on the six acres around his family’s cabin. There, Mahdavian wanders with his dog, tends to the garden and learns the history of the land—both the stories maintained by his white neighbors and the deeper Indigenous history. Mahdavian’s minimalist illustrations convey how large and rural Idaho can be, and they make it hard not to fall in love with that sort of hopeful landscape. Swaths of blank pages are populated by only the horizon and the plants and animals Mahdavian loves. If Idaho were simply gooseberries and black-billed magpies, it would be impossible to leave.

As Mahdavian settles into his cabin and tries to revel in the slow day to day of his life, he begins to fall in love with the natural world around him, even as his gun-toting neighbors remind him that people like Mahdavian—who is Iranian American—are considered outsiders. Beneath the big blue sky, Mahdavian struggles with their small-minded thinking and wonders if this place he loves can become home–and what choosing to make this place home really means.

It’s the surrounding people that leave Mahdavian feeling disconnected from the land whose history he seeks to understand. Mahdavian’s candid anecdotes showcase neighbors who welcome him and help during crises—even while slinging racial slurs and perpetuating stereotypes. Despite the serious and occasionally threatening nature of these exchanges, Mahdavian’s humor and thoughtfulness honors the kindness contained in these strange relationships while refusing to gloss over the harm that such insular thinking can cause.

Both poetic and personal, This Country meditates beautifully on what it means to create a home in the pockets of America where not everybody is wanted, due to their race or other aspects of identity. This Country is a must for fans of graphic memoirs like Kate Beaton’s Ducks: Two Years in the Oil Sands, and it’s not one to miss for anybody interested in insightful explorations of America’s heartland.

Both poetic and personal, This Country meditates beautifully on what it means to create a home in the pockets of America where not everybody is wanted, due to their race or other aspects of identity.
Children's & YAYA FictionYA

Together We Rot

Review by Nicole Brinkley

Wil Greene has spent months stalking Elwood Clarke’s family and obtaining photographic evidence about their Garden of Adam cult. On one stakeout, she even caught the Clarke patriarch sacrificing a rabbit in the woods. Police say Wil’s mom merely skipped town, but Wil suspects the Clarkes are actually behind her disappearance. It would be easier to find out where they’re keeping her mom if Wil was still talking to her former best friend, but Elwood told her that his family did nothing wrong, and Wil doesn’t have space in her life for liars.

But then, on Elwood’s 18th birthday, Wil finds him dying of hypothermia and with nowhere to go. The self-flagellating Clarke heir is on the run from his own parents, who intend to violently sacrifice him to the woods. Wil agrees to help him, but as they dig up secrets about the Clarke family, the town’s dark history and the fate of Wil’s too-inquisitive mother, Wil discovers that something demonic is growing inside of the boy she still loves.

Skyla Arndt’s debut novel takes second-chance romance in a gruesome, horrific direction as together, feisty outcast Wil and soft, sheltered Elwood fight for agency regarding their own fates. Beautifully written, Together We Rot (Viking, $18.99, 9780593526279) shines best in moments where Wil and Elwood stumble back into their old friendship. Their faith in each other, even in moments of visceral body horror, will set readers’ hearts fluttering—though mileage may vary on whether out of love or terror.

A well-balanced cast of teen friends and adult companions—including Wil’s grief-stricken father and tarot-loving eccentric Cherry—flesh out the small town of Pine Point with realism, while the terrifying Garden of Adam cult acts as a mythical stand-in for parents who dictate their children’s lives. Though the villainous group’s comeuppance happens too swiftly as the plot rushes to its end, it is nonetheless satisfying. Fans of twisted, monstrous romantic horror in the vein of Rory Power’s Wilder Girls and Sarah Hollowell’s A Dark and Starless Forest will love Together We Rot.

Skyla Arndt’s debut novel takes second-chance romance in a gruesome, horrific direction as together, feisty outcast Wil and soft, sheltered Elwood fight a terrifying cult for agency regarding their own fates.
Children's & YAChildren'sChapter Book

Trim Sets Sail

Review by Nicole Brinkley

When a small kitten named Trim learns that ships allow you to travel across the world, he realizes that’s what he wants to spend his life doing. With the help of the ship’s dog, Penny, Trim manages to get a position on the crew as the ship’s cat.

But life aboard the ship offers its own complications. The parrot, Jack, doesn’t seem to like Trim. Trim can climb up the mast, but it’s harder to climb back down. And there are so many words to describe parts of a ship! Can Trim master life aboard, or will he find himself sinking under the pressure?

The first in the new Adventures of Trim series by Deborah Hopkinson (a longtime BookPage contributor), Trim Sets Sail imagines the life of the most famous ship’s cat in history, who sailed on the HMS Investigator while its captain documented the coastline of Australia in the 1800s. Unlike Hopkinson’s nonfiction deep dives for older kids (Race Against Death, Titanic: Voices from the Disaster), history here acts merely as a backdrop for the fictionalized life of Trim. Hopkinson’s text focuses on the tumultuous emotional life and necessary education that takes place during the first days aboard the ship, while illustrator Kristy Caldwell’s colorful, endearing artwork conveys both the time period and the book’s charming cast of characters.

For kids who are voracious about learning new vocabulary, Trim Sets Sail gives opportunities both to use words they’ve already learned and to master words associated with ships. For instance, Penny points out that the bow of the ship rhymes with bow-wow, while Jack the parrot informs Trim that the starboard side of the ship is its right side. Woven through this delightful education is a sweet story about Trim trying, failing and trying again as he learns that the important thing on a ship is to work with the crew around you.

Trim Sets Sail acts as a perfect introduction to chapter books for kids who love cats, history or oceanic adventures. Pair with Jen Marlin’s Wind Riders series for a one-two punch of daring, big-hearted tales.

Trim Sets Sail acts as a perfect introduction to chapter books for kids who love cats, history or oceanic adventures.
NonfictionHistory

Washington’s Gay General

Review by Nicole Brinkley

Biographies can intrigue and educate with subject matter alone, but some of the most interesting give both the story of a life and the reason behind the author’s fascination. Washington’s Gay General: The Legends and Loves of Baron von Steuben tells the story of the titular war general, who rose from Prussian obscurity in the 1700s to become a once legendary yet now forgotten leader, and why Eisner Award-winning author Josh Trujillo found his life so interesting.

Ambitious and idealistic, Baron von Steuben quickly rose through the ranks of the Prussian Army through a combination of genius, white lies and good old flirting. However, relationships with Prussian royalty and a reputation as a leader in the army weren’t enough to keep him safe from charges of impropriety, and von Steuben found himself fleeing his home country.

After arriving in America, Benjamin Franklin recruited him to help the Americans organize their untrained rebel army. With the help of young men, some of whom were his lovers, von Steuben shared Prussian army techniques with George Washington, eventually writing the Blue Book guide that laid the foundation for training American soldiers. Yet because of his romantic partners and his immigrant status, it was always a challenge for von Steuben to form a legacy that would be remembered.

Thoughts from Trujillo (and, occasionally, illustrator Levi Hastings) stitch together the gaps in the available information on von Steuben’s life by weaving in compelling modern conversations on queer identity and queer history. They don’t shy away from darkness: The book discusses the fact that von Steuben enslaved people and highlights how his relative wealth and status protected him from what poorer, less powerful queer folk faced.

Hastings ditches the more colorful artwork found in his children’s books in favor of a classy triad color scheme of black, white and blue–quietly patriotic, much like von Steuben himself. The most beautiful piece of art comes at the very end of the book: a single-page spread of von Steuben’s beloved hound, curled up asleep in a bed made of von Steuben’s coat and hat.

Washington’s Gay General examines the same questions of ideology and legacy that permeate the Broadway show Hamilton, and fans of the production will certainly find much to enjoy. For those who are less interested in early American history and simply want to connect with their queer roots, Washington’s Gay General offers an accessible introduction to the life of Baron von Steuben and, through him, the queer people throughout history who have been hiding in plain sight.

Washington’s Gay General examines the same questions of ideology and legacy that permeate Broadway’s Hamilton, and fans of the show will find much to enjoy in this historical graphic novel.
Children's & YAMiddle GradeChildren's

Figure It Out, Henri Weldon

Review by Nicole Brinkley

When Henrietta Weldon’s parents decide that she should switch from private to public school for seventh grade, Henri is excited—and determined to hide her nerves. Between her messy bedroom and her struggles with math, Henri’s family of competitive overachievers treat her like “a problem to be solved.” Her older sister, Kat, refuses to answer Henri’s questions about Alterra Junior/Senior High School, instead insisting that Henri needs to “figure things out for herself,” which makes Henri eager to prove her whole family wrong.

With help from a kind teacher and the right tutor, Henri’s trouble with math turns out to be manageable, no matter how many times her brain tries to flip numbers around. It’s the rest of seventh grade that proves to be the real challenge. Between forgetting important deadlines, trying to convince her parents to let her join the soccer team and making new friends Kat instantly dislikes, Henri must solve the seemingly impossible problem of balancing everything she wants to do while keeping everyone else happy.

Coretta Scott King Honor author Tanita S. Davis’ two previous middle grade novels, Serena Says and Partly Cloudy, depict young people carving out identities and creating supportive spaces for themselves, and Davis explores similar themes in Figure It Out, Henri Weldon. As Henri confronts situations that range from remembering to read a friend’s short story to caring for her sick pet, Wil Snakespeare, she stays motivated to persevere, whether out of love for her friends or sheer spiteful desire to defy her family’s expectations. As Henri gets to know her friends’ close-knit foster family, their supportive bonds contrast starkly with Henri’s own family, enabling her to recognize how harshly they often behave toward one another. Eventually, Henri realizes there isn’t necessarily a wrong way to love, as long as you’re trying. 

The novel’s large cast of characters, along with Davis’ honest depiction of the sometimes antagonistic relationships between siblings, is relatable and authentic. Short excerpts from Henri’s journal open each chapter, grounding the book in a realistic sense of optimism that makes it easy to cheer her on. Figure It Out, Henri Weldon will encourage young readers to take a breath and keep trying, even when the odds—or their families—don’t always seem in their favor.

Henri is tired of her family treating her like “a problem to be solved,” so she’s determined to succeed at a new school in this honest and encouraging novel.

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