Book Review - 'Stacey Speaks Up' by Stacey Abrams (Writer), Kitt Thomas (Illustrator)

I thought I'd read 'Stacey Speaks Up', since I read the previous two picture books by Stacey Abrams, 'Stacey's Extraordinary Words', and 'Stacey's Remarkable Books'. And I'm glad I did. For it is another great, passionate, valuable, important book about basic human rights. It is a baby activist's first book.

It can also be read as a self-contained story. You don't have to read Stacey's other picture books in order to fully enjoy this one. They are each their own unique, powerful, diverse, educational gem.

Social awareness, community, talking to and listening to others, doing research, learning from history, using your voice, protesting, petitioning, standing together, and finding the courage and confidence to speak up and demand justice in an unfair, harmful and dangerous system - these are what 'Stacey Speaks Up' is about.

It isn't only about free school lunches - though that is also an important issue, for no child, no matter how much money they have, should ever have to go hungry, not at school. That's monstrous. That's child abuse, neglect and endangerment.

'Stacey Speaks Up''s subject matter can concern any other social issue, and the abovementioned methods towards change can be just as effective.

Of course it is never easy, and it takes time, but hopefully it will be worth it.

We have to try, and never give up, never give in to oppression.

Hopefully one will be listened to, and change will be enacted.

And children really do know better than adults, and know what is fundamentally right and wrong, don't they?

Maybe we should listen to young people.

The artwork is colourful, vibrant, bright, shiny, and absolutely gorgeous. Adorable, charming, irresistible, and larger than life, I love it. Every character, every child, is so diverse, it's beautiful.

Flaws in 'Stacey Speaks Up' include:

It could have chosen a few of its words more carefully. For example, one of Stacey's friends, Genny, in the friend group's protest and petition talk in the library, says that her older sister drags her from to house to ask people to save the planet. The word "drag" implies that she is forced to do this, and she is unenthusiastic about it, making it sound like a negative thing to do. Shouldn't "takes" or "brings me along" or "accompanies me" replace "drags", thus immediately giving it a positive connotation? This is a children's picture book, and one of its key messages is that words have power; writers always need to be careful when choosing what words they want to use to convey their message.

Then there's this line: 'Genny and Carter took stacks of petitions and pulled them down the street in her little brother's wagon'. Um, whose little brother? It could be Genny's, but Stacey and what is associated with her is mentioned in the previous paragraph on the same page, so it could apply to any of the girls with the same "her" pronoun. It is rather clunky writing.

I could hardly tell Stacey's friends apart, and I had trouble placing their names to who they were supposed to be in the picture book, as well.

But it is a fantastic social activists' book overall. Generally lighthearted, adorable and fun in tone, but passionate, big and serious in its messaging. The whole colourful thing is a beating heart full of hope.

Great quotes in 'Stacey Speaks Up', worth adhering to, and coming back to time and time again:


'Stacey felt herself get hot and jittery.
"I still should have done something."
Genny shrugged. "What could you do?
We're just kids. We don't make the rules."

Stacey thought about it. "But what if the rules are very, very wrong?"'


'"You have the power." [Stacey] pointed to the school board members.
"We need you to do something today."
Principal Howard said, "Stacey, that's not how the system works."
Jake shouted, "Why not?"
Genny and Julie joined him. "Why not?" they demanded.
More students started chanting, "Why not? Why not? Why not?"'


'Mr. McCormick [the librarian] had been right. Using [Stacey's] voice had helped Grayson used his. And words on a page combined with words spoken out loud made a difference.
Imagine what else all their voices could change...together.'


Lunch shouldn't be complicated.

Feeding children shouldn't be complicated.

Nothing should be so complicated.

Always ask "Why?". Why does it have to be this way? Who benefits the most from a corrupt, unfair, unjust system?

Always challenge, and speak out and stand against cruelty, unfairness, unkindness, and injustice.

For children will always be the worse effected, in the long run, and right now.

Children are our future. Listen to them, and take them seriously.

Once again, thank you, Stacey Abrams, and other activists like you. Keep going, keep doing what you are doing. Keep fighting. Keep speaking up. To make the world a better place.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Other recommended reading:


'A Hero Like Me'.

'That Flag'.

'A Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo'.

'Sulwe'.

'Love in the Library'.

'Dreams for our Daughters'.

'She Persisted'.

'Big'.

'The Proudest Blue'.

'The Kindest Red'.

'The Boldest White'.


Fight for freedom and equality, and love, for everyone. Always.

Final Score: 4/5

Book Review - 'The Café at the Edge of the Woods' by Mikey Please

'The Café at the Edge of the Woods' is a very funny picture book for all ages and genders.

It is about an ordinary woman, Rene, who builds with her own two hands a café at the edge of the woods (as you do). It turns out she lives in a fantasy and fairy tale world, and upon opening her café she employs a little green guy named Glumfoot as a waiter (he's the only applicant to show). In order for her business to succeed, Rene has to learn to cook for all kinds of customers, such as giant ogres. This chef needs to learn to cope, adapt, and not judge, and alter old recipes, and try new ones.

The artwork is great, bold, rustic, shadowy, cartoony and expressive. The narrative is told in rhyme, though not always consistently, at least on the ending verses. There is a good, solid message about tolerance, adapting to change, never giving up your dreams, and growing and developing in your craft and talents, and expanding your horizons, for "fine cuisine" can mean different things to different people.

Rene could be described as "a smallminded chef with big dreams", which is an oxymoron that she needs to fix, pronto.

The humour is on point, for anyone of any age, gender, background, brow metric, and taste. Heh.

(The book's jokes are better than mine, I assure you).

'The Café at the Edge of the Woods' reminds me strongly of 'Imelda and the Goblin King', 'Julia's House for Lost Creatures', 'Heckedy Peg', 'A Spoonful of Frogs', and 'The Bakery Dragon'.

Fun is on the menu!

Funny, fantasy, folklore, often fetid and foul, foodie stuff, prepared by a fine writer and artist chef de cuisine, Mikey Please.

Final Score: 4/5

Manga Review - 'The Savior's Book Café Story in Another World, Vol. 1' by Kyouka Izumi (Original Creator), Oumiya (Writer), Reiko Sakurada (Artist), Alexa Frank (Translator)

'The Savior's Book Café Story in Another World':

An isekai/transmigrator manga where the heroine - the "savior" - just wishes to settle down and open a book café in the fantasy world she is mysteriously transported to. The heroine is given magical powers, which she uses efficiently, responsibly and comfortably, at the one spot at the edge of the forest where her café home is located. And she is in her early thirties.

I needed this, like, yesterday.

What a dream manga and series for someone like me. It is so sweet, simple, quiet, quaint, gentle, funny, romantic, slice-of-life, and cosy. 'The Savior's Book Café Story in Another World' is the dictionary definition of a cosy fantasy, in the cosy/cottagecore fantasy genre.

And it is a wonderful fantasy, where capitalism and business are not the be-all-and-end-all to existing; you are allowed to live an unassuming life, doing whatever you want, when you want, at your own leisurely pace, and if you do run a business, like a café on the outskirts of a forest, nothing changes about you, and the number of customers isn't important, for money isn't as important as the company, and the dream life. Money is no object or issue; charge little and receive much in the way of love and friendship. It is your life, and you can live it however you wish. Money, magic, it makes no odds.

I cannot emphasise enough how I - and my heart - needed this manga, right now in my life.

I really like and relate to the heroine, Tsukina, a former office worker who could be considered an otaku only of books and cooking. I'm surprisingly really into the developing romance she has with the main guy, Il. The bafflingly named Il is a tall, dark, cool yet awkward, caring, and handsome chap, and a soldier, and a bookworm! Dreamboat! Dream bloke! Shame about his name.

In fact, I like all the characters, as little of the cast as we are introduced to so far.

The art is very good, if standard shōjo manga fare. But the food is brilliantly, exquisitely drawn, for the café and elsewhere. You will be hard-pressed not to want tea, food, and a book in a café after reading this!

'The Savior's Book Café Story in Another World' is quite clever and subversive of the typical isekai and transmigrator genre, too, and not just because of the heroine's age and her wanting a quiet life, with no grand hero's journey. I can tell that the plot is going to, well, get going, and will get even more twisty as the series progresses.

Or maybe there will be no adventure or battle in the traditional sense, and the romance will remain the primary focus, I don't know.

There are understated flowers in the corners on the cover of the first volume, which I think sums things up nicely.

'The Savior's Book Café Story in Another World' - what a cosy, lovely, warm, delectable, endearing, adorable little manga, and a sweet, soft, gentle-snowy-forest dream for bibliophiles and café lovers. It will certainly cheer anyone up, to escape into this fantasy. There's not much in the way of conflict and stakes yet, but judging from the forewarnings and foreshadowing, there will be!

Sure, there are flaws - like how you don't even find out what Tsukina's name is until over halfway through the volume, when Il says it, and how she somehow, magically knows what gender his horse is when she first meets him, and the bare-branches, underdeveloped worldbuilding details that aren't explored properly in this introductory volume. Tsukina is very much going with the flow and focusing on herself, her café, and her magic studies at the moment (we see her shopping in town once, and on Il's end there are somewhat rising tensions at the kingdom and palace where he works). Plus, we don't know yet how or why she was chosen to be this fantasy world's "savior" in the first place. But I don't care. I'm letting my feelings take over with this one.

'The Savior's Book Café Story in Another World' might be my new therapy.

It is rare for me to want to bother continuing a series once I've consumed its first volume, or pilot, but in this case, I definitely will be collecting the rest of the series. It is short, and it is making me happy, so why not? Consider me a won-over fan.

Recommended if you also like 'A Cat from Our World and the Forgotten Witch', 'Snow White with the Red Hair', 'Aria of the Beech Forest', 'Frieren: Beyond Journey's End', 'She Loves to Cook, and She Loves to Eat', 'Kitchen Princess', and 'Amazing Agent Luna' (hey, it's another manga series I recently got into and finished, so why not include it?)

'The Savior's Book Café Story in Another World, Vol. 1' - I can't wait to read more of this lovely, dear, heartwarming series!

Final Score: 3.5/5

Graphic Novel Review - 'Project Nought' by Chelsey Furedi

Woah.

Wow.

What a surprise 'Project Nought' turned out to be.

One of the best chance purchases in a bookshop I've ever done.

One of the best YA sci-fi stories I've ever encountered, not just in comics.

I won't dare spoil anything about 'Project Nought' - it truly is the preferred experience to go in blind like I was.

Know only that it is powerful. It is a powerful story, and it deserves to be showcased as one of the best cases for webcomics, and passion projects in media in general.

It is effortlessly, beautifully, all-around queer, to boot. The rep is excellent, thoughtful, respectful, and funny and sweet. As well as different sexual orientations, there are more than one enbies here! The POC rep is just as effortless and fantastic. Plus the disability and body type rep.

I adore nearly all these diverse, precious, charming, outstanding, pop tart, pop chart characters. They are colourful in so many ways. They each deserve their own spinoff series. They stand out, and pop out! Yet they bounce and flow so well in a story so complex, dark and deep.

Oddly enough, the comic has a wholehearted, Nickelodeon cartoon style, charm and feel to it. If not for a few swear words in the dialogue, it could have been rated all-ages.

Okay, I'll disclose one slight spoiler: 'Project Nought' is also a story with this underlining, vital and relevant message: corporations are evil, amoral and unethical, and you should not stan and trust them. We need to hold them to account and responsibility, and depower and dismantle them, and capitalism.

'Project Nought' misses a perfect five star score from me because of a few niggling flaws, annoyances, overlooked and forgotten details, and plot holes. But overall it is brilliant storytelling and character writing. It may have started out as a webcomic, but it is a complete story, published as a singular graphic novel. And if there is new content in the future, I won't say no to seeing more of these characters! Practically no one is forgotten about by the end.

Speaking of, the comic contains some of the most effective, sensible, and shocking plot twists I have ever seen in recent memory.

Science fiction doesn't get much better than this.

It is science fiction with heart. And colour.

Highly recommended reading.

It will stay with you for a long, long time afterwards.

Final Score: 4/5

Graphic Novel Review - 'The Witching Hours' by Hannah Myers (Contributor, Editor), Various

This is a very weird anthology comic.

I only bought it because I love witchy stuff. And 'The Witching Hours' delivers on that promise, with the weirdest, often macabre and abstract, short stories that even I could never have imagined. A few are downright horrific and skin-crawling! Nearly all of them end abruptly and half-finished.

Equal to the bizarre, differentiating creative writing exercises is the varying art styles accompanying them. The only commonality these stories share are the colours black, white, grey, and bright aquamarine.

Darn it, Diana! I like 'The Witching Hours', no matter how confusing or unsatisfying and short some of the stories are. They are original, creative, challenging, defiant, unique, understated, humble yet proud, and even charming and beautiful in their own way. It goes on my witchy, wooden bookshelf, full of the most creative, unconventional, modern witchy tales.

Such eclectic tastes, and Morrigan-ic morsels, to be found in this collection. The fable/folkloric likes of Baba Yaga and Hecate would be proud.

Cooked together, humbly and unpretentiously, by eleven independent Canadian female and nonbinary artists, 'The Witching Hours' is also full of LBGTQA+ content. It is very similar to 'Power & Magic: The Queer Witch Comics Anthology', and 'Other Ever Afters: New Queer Fairy Tales', 'Over My Dead Body', 'Witchy', 'Unfamiliar', and 'Witchcraft: A Graphic History: Stories of wise women, healers and magic'. Heck, fans of 'Sabrina the Teenage Witch' can find something to enjoy in it, as well.

A cabalistic, occultic, obscure, rare little onyx and smoky quartz jewel of an anthology comic, that's even a little educational towards the end, I recommend 'The Witching Hours' for all witches and witch fans to try out. There's bound to be at least one story they'll like.

I'll end on a note from Hannah Myers, contributor and editor of the book:


'Nowadays, young women are exposed to the concepts of witchcraft and wicca through pop culture and modern books. I think a lot of young women are drawn to the ideals of being one with and using nature and magic to take control and have power over their destiny. I certainly was.

The stories I've assembled not only add to, but broaden the canon of the witch while simultaneously confronting their troubled history. Beyond the theme, it was important to me to include a range of genres and styles within the book to reveal the number of different ways the theme could be approached as well as showcase the talent of these wonderful artists. I am incredibly impressed with the work these artists have done and am so excited to share it all with you.'


Final Score: 3.5/5

Graphic Novel Review - 'Please Be My Star' by Victoria Grace Elliott

'Please Be My Star' is a gender-bent version of 'The Phantom of the Opera' set in a modern day American high school. Its main themes are isolation, obsession, depression, social anxiety, self-image, self-esteem, creativity, theatre, geek culture, taking part in groups and making new friends, stress, "happily ever afters", and finding yourself and your self-confidence.

Sure, despite its "realism", it is overall a wish-fulfilment fantasy, and kind of problematic - in that angle where if it was deconstructed and the genders in canon were reversed, it would easily be a horror, not a romance; a psychological thriller genre story (so in other words, like pretty much every classic, John Hughes-esque romcom ever made).

But you know what? Why shouldn't insecure, weird, unpopular girls who are not conventionally attractive get their own wish-fulfilment fantasy as well? Why shouldn't geek girls like hot guys, and in their own weird way?

Even though the female protagonist in 'Please Be My Star' is rather stalkerish, she's not hurting anyone, and her coming-of-age story is ultimately about her loving herself for who she is, and expressing and understanding herself in her writing, regardless of what anyone thinks, before she can properly love and pursue anyone else.

'Please Be My Star' can come across as tonally all over the place, in that it seems to want to be a YA depression piece about an outcast teenage girl who is a creepy stalker with a crush, and is creative, and wants to love herself and feel worthy of others' love, but she can't bring herself to believe this in a society that is obsessed with looks... and perhaps she is little too overimaginative, such as in her writing... but at the end of the day, it is a lighthearted, cute manifesto to all the weirdo (albeit cishet white) girls in the world, dying for a YA story like this. Like, you go girl! Go big or go home, girl!

So don't go into it expecting something like an actual 'The Phantom of the Opera' adaptation, or the films 'Carrie' and 'May'.

It's not a psychological thriller after all.

It is both a cry for help and a story of hope.

For a better world for weirdos.

I know I personally relate to the main character, Erika Early, especially when I was younger - brown hair, imaginative, a lonely, self-conscious, self-talking, friendless social outcast, and a creative writer. I wasn't quite as obsessive as she is when I was a teenager - I certainly never built a shrine to anyone or collected stuff belonging to other people for the purpose of said shrine (I had my limits; I was self-conscious enough to try not to be creepy, or maybe I simply didn't like most other people and was too self-absorbed in my own crap) - but I know what it's like to dare, or not dare, to have crushes on guys who are so far out of my league that we might as well be from different planets. Practically everybody was shallow, superficial, and obsessed with popularity, fitting in and being "normal", and therefore I never bothered to pursue any crush, out of fear of rejection and humiliation. "Fitting in" didn't come naturally to me and it wasn't as effortless as others made it seem. It was truly hopeless.

I consider Erika to be braver than I am. She at least tries to get her crush involved in her life, and maybe get him to like her back, against all unlikely odds.

I also relate to her school theatre group experiences. Theatre was one of the few creative and social pursuits I tried at, in expressing myself. Those rehearsals, my good, grief goddesses.

Christian Dominguez, Erika's love interest, is a cute, sweet, cool, handsome boy - funny, thoughtful, warm, considerate, and seemingly perfect. However, the comic reveals his family life, and how he isn't as much of a one-dimensional, gorgeous dream boy as he first appears. Like Erika, he's complex, and has issues, like all humans.

In conclusion: not such a wish-fulfilment fantasy how many times have I used that phrase in this review.

Though it still is one.

Kinda?

It's just... 'Please Be My Star' is a profoundly personal hard-hitter for me. It criticises, and sympathises with, and helps, and uplifts weirdo geek girls who are not good at interacting with people. It gives them hope. And a hug.

It is their love letter. Not necessarily their validation for existing (they don't need it), nor their enabler in problematic behaviour.

For "unattractive", "creepy" and "freak" girls deserve love, too.

On top of all that, it feels like an additional love letter to shōjo manga.

I admit that, among its flaws, 'Please Be My Star' is geek girl representation - complete with notebooks on their real people crushes and their fictional crushes, including in cartoons and video games, I can relate! - from a cishet-normative perspective. Though there is that one-off moment where two lesbians are included in Erika's "Forever Boys" book, and she states, "Gender is irrelevant. A boy is a state of mind." (It's supposed to be complicated?) Em, anyway, the comic's LBGTQA+ rep is relegated to its side characters (Julie and Morgan are great, and funny), which is head-tilting and dated for a 2024 graphic novel.

But darn it, it is a sweet, lovely gesture of a book from an underdog female perspective, ya know? It also loves theatre, writing, acting, and costume making, and record players, vintage bands, CDs, VHS tapes, classic movies, classic actors, and typewriters. Retro! Plus playlists, comics and manga. And I love the (somewhat ambiguous?) ending.

So there you have it: my review of 'Please Be My Star', one of my guilty pleasures of 2025.

Let me have this, hmm'kay? And it is a lot deeper, and cleverer, and more self-aware, insightful and introspective than you might think.

Everyone is messy.

It is impossible to have it all together, all the time.

Few have the courage to admit they always will be a mess.

And that's okay.

Messy is okay.

You will be loved, and you are loved, for your imperfections, your "defects", anyway.

You'll see.

Erika - and me, and everybody else - I love you all.

Final Score: 3.5/5