Graphic Novel Review - 'The Sprite and the Gardener' by Rii Abrego, Joe Whitt

2023 EDIT:

Reread: Remains one of the best, and prettiest, fairy--no, sprites books ever. Spellbindingly adorable and wholesome.

Final Score: 4/5





Original Review:



'The Sprite and the Gardener' is a very, very pretty graphic novel.

Short and sweet, it is about tiny sprites (though I can't stop calling them fairies in my head), who are cute and come in all shapes, sizes and colours, and who are living the best life they can in secret from the humans who came and inadvertently took their jobs of growing, caring for and preserving plant life. The sprites are unneeded and unproductive, and have forgotten how to use their beautiful flower magic.

Until one day, a new sprite in town, Wisteria, decides to fly around on her own, and she finds a dry, unkempt backyard, with a young struggling gardener, Elena, trying unsuccessfully to grow things. Wisteria falls in love with Elena (that is what it comes across as; made solid by the final draft page depicting Wisteria falling for a woman and her smile - subtext? Ha!), and she secretly starts to help the girl grow lovely flowers in the garden overnight - with mind-blowing, mystical, whimsical magic that is unique to her.

Worms and regular gardening tips apply; sprite magic (that includes controlling water) would be a nice boost, though, wouldn't it?

'The Sprite and the Gardener' is almost like a Magical Girl manga in colour. The precious artwork is very similar to that kind of style. Oddly enough, some of the character designs remind me of 'Steven Universe'. It is also like Kay O'Neill's graphic novels; so wholesome and adorable, with powerful messages of family, friendship, teamwork, community, preserving important traditions that progress and prosper through updated details, and environmentalism, which is conveyed nicely and is easily digestible.

Heck, this story about nature and the environment is one of the very rare examples that doesn't portray a simple black-and-white view of the issue, where humans are evil and destructive and kill other species, mostly out of malicious intent and greed than ignorance or indifference. Not that capitalism itself, as well as interconnected systematic flaws and sociopolitical factors, are ever criticised in those stories. Got to stick to that unchanging, unchallenging, unrevolutionary status quo! No radical thinking that gets right down to the root of all problems, as it were.

Uh, anyway, about man not being the enemy in 'The Sprite and the Gardener': all the sprites are alive and doing fine, they've just been made redundant. Humans are shown to be creating more good than harm, and maybe if they knew of the existence of flowery sprites, they could learn to coexist and work together, for a better, more sustainable world...

There are no villains here, only people. The sole conflict comes in the characters trying to help each other. Listening to and being nice to others shouldn't be such an unorthodox feature in stories, yet here we are. Like plant life and conservationism, these morals are vital to us as a surviving species.

'The Sprite and the Gardener' is outlandishly positive, faithful and life-affirming, and I am here for it. Bountiful and gorgeous, it's not just for children; we all need some positivity, sunshine, roses and petals in our lives. It's the new summertime read for kids.

Less bleakness and fatalism and more of this, please!

Final Score: 4/5