Emily Koch

Anya is about to become a Moth Keeper, a guardian tasked with protecting the Moon-Moths. According to the lore in Anya’s desert village, the moths were a gift from the Moon-Spirit, who wished to show her gratitude for the villagers’ choice to forswear daylight. Instead, they live their waking hours at night so the Moon-Spirit doesn’t have to be alone. Every year, the luminous Moon-Moths pollinate the Night-Flower tree, which the village relies on to thrive.

At first, Anya is convinced that caring for the moths will keep her “warm inside even on long, cold nights,” but the temptation of daylight chips away at her resolve. When the solitude and darkness become too much, Anya makes a decision with consequences that ripple across the desert and history itself. In The Moth Keeper, Eisner Award-winning graphic novelist K. O’Neill portrays how isolation can break even the strongest will, but a supportive community can mend all rifts.

O’Neill (The Tea Dragon Society, Aquicorn Cove) has established themself as a phenomenal graphic novel creator for middle grade audiences. Their work often explores themes of community and the natural world, and The Moth Keeper is no exception. In one scene, Anya’s friend Estell tells her about the essential role that the Night-Flower tree’s pollen plays in the desert: “That’s the magic of it—it’s part of the rhythm of nature. Everything is connected.” 

In their signature style, O’Neill’s soft, gentle artwork invites readers into a fantasy world dominated by every shade of blue and yellow. O’Neill plays subtly with graphics conventions to great effect. By eliminating the gutter when folktales are being told, for instance, they convey the larger-than-life significance of the stories to the village’s culture. Similarly, double-page spreads of the vast, rolling desert landscape capture “the smallness one feels standing amid such scenery,” as O’Neill explains in an afterword.

O’Neill’s books have a singular quality that makes them difficult to compare to anyone else’s work, aside from their own. Although its world building isn’t quite as rich as in the Tea Dragon series and the character development not as deep as in Aquicorn Cove, The Moth Keeper is still a charming story that will delight O’Neill’s fans and new readers alike, drawing them in like Moon-Moths to a lantern. 

Frankie Bryant just wants to figure out what to wear for their band concert. Neither a suit nor a dress feels quite right to the nonbinary middle schooler. They’ve been through a lot since coming out, including being abandoned by their best friend, Dallas, who makes a show of using the right pronouns in front of adults but snickers about Frankie behind their back. Otherwise, Frankie’s life is fairly normal . . . until they save a golden retriever from bullies and are transported to a giant magical doghouse, where they are given a funny-looking helmet that allows them to talk to a group of superhero dogs called the Pawtheon.

In The Dog Knight, Frankie must prove that they possess the dog virtues—loyalty, kindness, honesty, justice, stubbornness and smell—over the course of six trials. Then they will be named the titular Dog Knight and assume a legendary role alongside the Pawtheon to protect the world from agents of chaos. The golden retriever, Platinum, believes Frankie can do it—but can they believe in themself?

Author Jeremy Whitley (creator of the Glyph Award-winning Princeless series) crafts a heartwarming and funny tale about being true to yourself and fighting for what’s right. His world building is adorable, thoughtful and highly entertaining, including the lore of how humans and dogs came to have a pact. The redemption of Frankie’s ex-best friend is messy and lengthy, and therefore realistic. The story arc wraps up nicely but has enough loose ends to leave readers wanting more from the planned series.

Illustrations by Bre Indigo (Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy: A Modern Graphic Retelling of Little Women) absolutely shine. Both humans and dogs have diverse character designs and dynamic expressions that will be sure to satiate hungry Raina Telgemeier fans. Their use of sound effects alternates between helpful onomatopoeias (such as Frankie’s drums making “tk tk tk tk” sounds) and humorous action indicators (such as the words “pet pet” appearing when Frankie pets one of the super pups). Colors by Melissa Capriglione (Basil and Oregano) are vibrant, with backgrounds that shift colors with characters’ moods and gutters that add to the tone—black during eerie night scenes and bright blue during an ethereal dog lore flashback, for example.

While this isn’t necessarily a story about being nonbinary, Frankie’s gender identity is essential to the narrative; for example, being truthful about how much Dallas hurt them passes the honesty trial, and finding the perfect outfit clears the smell trial. Too few children’s books feature genderqueer protagonists, and fewer still feature nonbinary protagonists in the type of heroic roles that their cisgender peers have played for decades. The Dog Knight is an excellent addition to a necessary and growing canon and will fit in nicely among Molly Knox Ostertag’s The Witch Boy series or ND Stevenson’s Lumberjanes series.

Twelve-year-old Lula Viramontes longs to be heard. She’s scared to use her raspy voice to stand up to her volatile Papá, who has decided that Lula and her sister will stop attending school so they can work in the grape fields of Delano, California. Lula is also worried about her Mamá, whose sudden illness has likely been caused by pesticides. But she has a seed of hope: Some organizations are leading a strike for better working conditions, and she must find the courage to convince Papá to join them.

A Seed in the Sun is a well-researched glimpse into the 1965 Delano grape strike and the 1960s movement for labor justice. Through Lula’s experiences, author Aida Salazar invites readers into the life of a child working in dangerous conditions. In an author’s note, Salazar is quick to point out that Lula’s reality still exists for many young people today, since “United States child labor laws (which protect children from exploitation) don’t apply to farmwork—the only industry in the nation that does not abide by them.” While the Viramontes are fictional, Lula and her family encounter real activists such as Dolores Huerta, Larry Itliong and Cesar Chavez. 

In two previous novels (The Moon Within and Land of the Cranes), Salazar established herself as an expert writer of middle grade verse narratives filled with beautiful metaphors and similes. Her skill is evident here, as when Lula describes her voice as “an orange-yellow mist / that comes and goes / like clouds.” Salazar also intersperses Spanish throughout all of her novels, which lends authenticity to her verse. Although non-Spanish speakers will easily discern the meaning of most of the book’s Spanish words and phrases from context, fluent Spanish speakers and those who use a dictionary or translator as they read will be rewarded with treasures, like how the book’s six section titles are words that signify aspects of the harvesting season.

Salazar’s text is dynamic, with words that flow across the page. Each poem has its own pattern, and Salazar is creative with indentation, alignment and overall form. For instance, when Lula and her sister go behind their father’s back to get union cards, Salazar relays what happens next in a single block of full-justified text, conveying Lula’s excitement and nervousness about her passionate rebellion. 

Readers gravitate toward middle grade historical fiction because it makes complex history tangible. A Seed in the Sun deserves a space on the shelf alongside Brenda Woods’ When Winter Robeson Came, which portrays another social justice movement in 1965 California, and Pam Muñoz Ryan’s Pura Belpré Award-winning Esperanza Rising, a modern classic of children’s literature that depicts the experiences of migrant workers.