Bumpy Oak Books

5 stars

Wendy Xu and Suzanne Walker bring us Mooncakes, a graphic novel about a young witch and werewolf and a nefarious group of practitioners who have summoned a demon causing trouble in the woods.

This read was just such a joy. Our witch character, Nova, is queer and uses hearing aids. Our werewolf, Tam, is nonbinary and queer as well. Nova lives with her two grandmas, and has a plus sized scientist best friend in Tatyana. Nova, Tam, and the grandmas all appear to be POC as well. Overall, this graphic novel is knocking representation out of the park.

The art style is so cute, whimsical, and clean. The color choices just add in to the appeal, and the forest spirits are my absolute favorites.

Even given the somewhat short nature of a graphic novel, Mooncakes manages to have clear building and resolving of the plot. I would love to see more of these characters and this world, but the story is resolved and would be fine as a standalone.

This is a graphic novel that, even after reading it, I still feel as though I want to own it, which is uncommon for me. I can’t think of anything specifically that would make this graphic novel better.

I absolutely look forward to more from this author-illustrator pair.