Anya’s Ghost

Anya could really use a friend. But her new BFF isn’t kidding about the “Forever” part . . . Of all the things Anya expected to find at the bottom of an old well, a new friend was not one of them. Especially not a new friend who’s been dead for a century. Falling down a well is bad enough, but Anya’s normal life might actually be worse. She’s embarrassed by her family, self-conscious about her body, and she’s pretty much given up on fitting in at school. A new friend—even a ghost—is just what she needs. Or so she thinks. Spooky, sardonic, and secretly sincere, Anya’s Ghost is a wonderfully entertaining debut from author/artist Vera Brosgol.

Featured in WOW Review Volume XI, Issue 2.

A Drop Of The Sea

Ali lives with his great-grandmother in a tiny clay house at the edge of the desert. Just her and him. Just him and her. They don’t need anything more to be happy. But lately, Ali has begun to notice how his great-grandmother has aged. And one day, he asks if her life’s dreams have come true. All except one, she tells him. She had a dream to see the sea, but now she is too old to go. So, the next morning, Ali sets off with a pail in hand. He is going to make his great-grandmother’s final dream come true. He is going to bring the sea to her.

Astrid the Unstoppable

Speed and self-confidence that’s Astrid’s motto, Nicknamed “the little thunderbolt,” she loves to spend her days racing down the hillside on her skis or sled, singing merrily as she goes, and drinking hot chocolate made from real chocolate bars with her grumpy best friend and godfather, Gunnvald. She just wishes there were other children to share in her hair-raising adventures. But her world is about to be turned upside down, first by the arrival of a family with children to her village, and then by a mysterious woman whom everyone but Astrid seems to know.

Eye Spy: Wild Ways Animals See The World

Ever wonder what your cat is watching through the window? Or how having eyes on the sides of its head changes the world for a horse? And what would life be like seeing in 5 colors instead of only 3? After a whirlwind tour of how eyes work, children will lift the flaps to find out how animals as different as dogs, owls, and chameleons see the same scene.

Missing Mike

Cara and her family have been packed for days, ready to take everything they can’t live without and flee when the wildfire reaches their home. But when the evacuation order comes, all that preparation was not enough. Because what Cara can’t live without most is her dog Mike, and he is nowhere to be found.

The Patchwork Bike

When you live at the edge of the no-go desert, you need to make your own fun. That’s when you and your brothers get inventive and build a bike from scratch, using everyday items like an old milk pot (maybe Mum is using it, maybe not), a bent bucket seat, and bashed tin-can handles. The end result is a spectacular bike, perfect for going bumpetty bump over the sand hills, past your fed-up mum, and right through your mud-for-walls home.

Night Shift

In Night Shift, Debi Gliori has used her own personal experience with depression to create moving pieces of art that really capture how depression can feel, the way it isolates you from the world and makes even simple everyday tasks seem impossible. But, more importantly, she also shows that the feelings don’t last forever and that you can come out on the other side.

Featured in WOW Review Volume XI, Issue 2.

There There

As we learn the reasons that each person is attending the Big Oakland Powwow—some generous, some fearful, some joyful, some violent—momentum builds toward a shocking yet inevitable conclusion that changes everything. Jacquie Red Feather is newly sober and trying to make it back to the family she left behind in shame. Dene Oxendene is pulling his life back together after his uncle’s death and has come to work at the powwow to honor his uncle’s memory. Opal Viola Victoria Bear Shield has come to watch her nephew Orvil, who has taught himself traditional Indian dance through YouTube videos and will to perform in public for the very first time. There will be glorious communion, and a spectacle of sacred tradition and pageantry. And there will be sacrifice, and heroism, and loss. There There is a wondrous and shattering portrait of an America few of us have ever seen.