Candy Bunny Reader

    This graphic novel is not what you think (in a good way)! This first volume of Super Boba Cafe by Nidhi Chanani takes place over summer break in San Francisco. It follows 13 year old Aria helping her Nainai (grandmother) at her boba tea shop. The boba tea shop hasn't had a lot of customers lately, but when Nainai's pet cat Bao has kittens, it turns into an unofficial cat cafe, thus attracting more customers. Aria is glad that now her grandmother's boba tea shop is thriving, but Nainai also seems to be keeping a secret from Aria... Meanwhile Aria has trouble befriending a named Jay, who lives next door to her Nainai. Aria is anxious to make new friends because during the school year, she got cyberbullied by someone she thought she could trust. But Jay ends up becoming a big help for Aria and Nainai later on when they find out what Nainai has been hiding from everyone this whole time.  I can't tell you too much because it would get into spoilers, but it involves a lo...

So this is the first book I read for Middle Grade March. It is the second book of the Amari series by BB Alston . I read the first book, Amari and the Night Brothers last month. You can read the review for that here . I can't get too into detail with this second book, Amari and the Great Game , because it's a sequel. I will say though this book was way more intense than the second one! I really love the way BB Alston writes. The story had me on the edge of my seat. I love Amari and her friends. The worldbuilding is cool, too. The mystery was mind blowing. I can't wait to read book 3! Image of book was found on Google Images

  I smell a new favorite series of mine in the making... I am so glad I finally picked this up! It had me on the edge of my seat. Amari and the Night Brothers by BB Alston follows 13 year old Amari, whose has been struggling in school and her older brother Quinton all of a sudden went missing. One day, she finds a mysterious briefcase telling her that she has been nominated by Quinton to join The Bureau of Supernatural Affairs, which Quinton himself was a part of. The Bureau invesitigates supernatural cases around the world and also tries to keep everything supernatural away from regular humans.  Amari joins the summer camp that trains new recruits, and she decides to become an agent like her brother to make it easier to find him. But then she discovers something about herself that is quite dangerous--and it leads to more surprises from there. It includes discovering the secrets and plans of the notorious Night Brothers! What else can I say except that it is such a page-turnin...

(Pic was found on Google Images) This was a graphic novel that I read back in middle school, but I couldn't remember a single thing that happened. Did I like it the second time around? Well... Courtney Crumrin and the Night Things by Ted Naifeh is about Courtney, a preteen girl who  with her snobby and clueless parents move in with her Great Uncle Aloysius, who lives in a mansion that looks haunted. The great uncle and his house seem to have mysteries of their own. Courtney dislikes her new school but is able to somewhat become friends with a guy nicknamed "Stain", who is an outcast like her. Stain gets picked on frequently by the popular rich kids at the school, who keep demanding money from him. Courtney gets lumped into the situation, but is able to save her new friend and defeat the bullies with some help with her new eerie creature friends at her great uncle's mansion, and with a bit of magic.  It's a very simple story, but it was very entertaining! I love t...

  Another great book by one of my favorite authors! Did you know around the time this book was released (October 2024), an actual flood happened in Asheville, NC, which is where this book also happens to take place? It was also because of a hurricane: Hurricane Helene. Robert Beatty decided that a portion of his sales from this book will go to help victims of the floods. i bought a copy of this book to help out the cause. Thank you, Mr. Beatty! Sylvia Doe and the 100-Year Flood is a middle grade urban fantasy novel about 13 year old Sylvia Doe, who has run away from another foster family back to Highground Home for Children, where she feels she truly belongs. This is quite a problem for her social worker and the state, since she can't permanently live in the place like an orphanage from the old days (the book takes place in modern times). But on top of that, Hurricane Jessamine has passed through the area and has flooded the area, destroying a lot of things and hurting a lot of p...

  Did you love the Tea Dragon Society by Kay O'Neill ? Here's another graphic novel from them! Aquicorn Cove is about Lana and her father. They go to the coast to visit her aunt to help clean up after a big storm. During the cleanup Lana finds and takes care of what she thinks is a seahorse. It turns out it's actually a magical creature called an aquicorn! Lana's aunt actually has a connection to aquicorns, and she tells Lana all about it. The aquicorns also live in coral reef that has been falling apart due to human activity, and they probably have a connection to the coast having bigger, more frequent storms. Lana and her family find a way to save the coral--and the aquicorns, too.  It was a very sweet magical book with a focus on environmentalism! The artwork is lovely, too. There's queer rep, too--the leader of the aquicorns in nonbinary. I should warn you that there is a flashback of a loved one who dies in the book. So this was a 5 star from me!

  This book was sooo sweet and sooo cute! The Sprite and the Gardener by Rii Abrego and Joe Whitt takes place in our world--with some magic! Sprites have lived for centuries helping all kinds of plants grow with their magic. Until humans came along and started doing gardening themselves. The sprites are still around but they help less and less. One little sprite named Wisteria secretly discovers a human girl named Elena who takes care of her mother's flower garden, as her mother is out working all day. Wisteria decides to secretly help Elena's garden grow, as long as she isn't discovered.  If you couldn't already tell, Wisteria does get discovered by Elena. And everything changes from there.  What a magical book! I love the whimsical illustrations, and I loved what a chill, slice-of-life cottagecore book this was.  It is a pure 5 star book . I want to read more from this author and illustrator. What was the last "chill" book you read?

I saw this tag over at the Instagram page of @fragilelunar . It looked really neat so I decided to do it too! As always, feel free to do this tag if you see it. 1. What genre would you be? Urban fantasy 2. What would your cover look like? Very colorful and cartoony, with some cottagecore aesthetic 3. What would your average Goodreads rating be? Hopefully a 4! 4. What would the main plot be? Something about an eccentric main character daydreaming a lot, and then their dreams come true via magic. They also make a lot of friends along the way while learning so many new things. 5. Would you like a happy ending or a sad ending? Happy of course! 6. What lesson would a reader take away from you? That you can find joy in the smallest and most unexpected of places. 7. What book would you like to be compared to? Anne of Green Gables, Mandy, and the Tea Dragon Society. 

Well, this was kind of disappointing. Ellie Engle Saves Herself by Leah Johnson is a middle grade novel about 12 year old Ellie Engle, who loves superhero stories. On the first day of school, an earthquake happens, and after the earthquake Ellie gets magical powers where she is able to bring dead things back to life. Ellie has mixed feelings about her new powers, and her best friend Abby tells her to keep it a secret. She accidentally exposes her powers while in her science class, because she accidentally brings a frog back to life, and everyone starts calling her "Frog Girl". Pretty soon she is famous all over town, and her friend Abby gets jealous about this. Life is not the same now that everyone knows she's basically a real life superhero with superpowers! At the same time, Ellie deals with her rocky friendship with Abby while getting to know some other people in her life better.  I'm gonna be honest, this book did not live up to the hype for me. While I was read...

I was pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed this! The first volume of Magical Boy by The Kao is about Max--a trans guy who is descended from a line of magical warriors who have to protect the earth from these giant bug monsters who feed off of peoples' negative feelings. The magical warriors of his family got their powers from the goddess Aurora. Max doesn't like this new magical warrior responsibility at first, as his outfit looks really feminine, and his mother (the previous magical warrior) expects him to do his magical duties the traditional way. That includes "acting" really feminine, something Max is obviously uncomfortable with. But with the help of his friend Jen, a new friend named Sean, and an enemy turned friend named Pyper, Max begins to do things his own way. They work together to try to stop the bug monsters from destroying the Earth. His magical outfit also looks less feminine over time.  This book was a blast! I loved this take on a magical warrior...

  Middle School and Other Disasters: Worst Broommate Ever! by Wanda Coven is a middle grade book (first of a series) of a girl named Heidi Heckelbeck who starts middle school at a boarding school that secretly offers magic classes (casting spells and stuff like that, not magic tricks). Heidi herself comes from a long line of witches who attended the same boarding school. Heidi is nervous about starting middle school without her family nearby and her friends from elementary school, but when she arrives there, she ends up loving the campus. She also runs into an old friend of hers named Sunny, and also becomes friends with Sunny's roommate, Annabelle. Unfortunately, Heidi's roommate is a girl she always had a huge rivalry with since second grade: a girl named Melanie Maplethrope! Now she thinks middle school will be a nightmare, but then she learns she and Melanie have a lot more in common than they thought...and maybe they could become friends? Man, this book was so refreshing ...

  I've been seeing this graphic novel floating around the bookish internet and I finally got to read it a few days ago.  Sheets by Brenna Thummler is about 13 year old Marjorie Glatt who, outside of school hours, is almost always running her late mother's laundromat and has to deal with all sorts of people, including a shady businessman who wants to replace the laundromat with a giant spa. At school, Marjorie is very unpopular and gets picked on a lot.  One day, a ghost from the spirit world named Wendell accidentally ends up in Marjorie's house/laundromat, and make a mess of things that end up driving away a ton of customers. Marjorie finds out about him and she gets mad. But after scaring off the shady businessman guy, Marjorie grows to appreciate Wendell.  I got to be honest, even though this book sounded like something up my alley, I was actually quite disappointed in it. For one, I thought the majority of the story was so sad! Almost every page is som...

 TW: brief mention of guns and shooting New favorite book of the year!  A Snake Falls to Earth by Darcie Little Badger is a YA urban fantasy about two teenagers: Nina and Oli. Nina is a Lipan Apache girl living in Texas who is interested in the stories of The Reflecting World, which is a magical world that mirrors Earth but is home to shapeshifting animals who can turn themselves into humans. She films and records stories she hears on the St0ryte11er app with her followers. Oli is one of these shapeshifters from The Reflecting World, and in his true form he is a cottonmouth snake (in the book their "false form" refers to their human form). He is able to leave home for the first time by himself, and on his journey he befriends several other shapeshifters, two coyote sisters named Risk and Reign, and a hawk named Brightest. He also befriends a little frog named Ami.  Well, the two run into problems. Where Nina lives in Texas, a hurricane is approaching, and she and her fam...

  This past week I read the graphic novel Mooncakes by Wendy Xu and Suzanne Walker . And boy was it magical! The story stars Nova, who lives with her grandmothers who run a witchcraft shop. Nova's childhood friend (who is also a werewolf), Tam, comes back to town, and Nova is happy to rekindle her friendship with them. But at the same time, weird things have been happening in the forest near Nova's house, usually glowing lights going off at random times. Nova discovers it's a demon horse! For some reason, the demon horse is mostly after Tam. Nova, Tam, Nova's grandmothers, and Nova's friend Tatyana try to figure out where the demon horse came from, and why is it so interested in Tam, and what spells and potions can they use to ward it off.  I don't know what other words to use to describe how enchanting and heartwarming this story was! If you want another urban fantasy book about witches, mysteries, family, and friendship, check this book out! I gave is 5 stars ...

  The Girl from the Sea by Molly Ostertag is a YA Graphic Novel about a teenage girl named Morgan Kwon who lives in a house on a small island near a small town near the mainland somewhere in Canada with her divorced mother and little brother. She has a relatively normal life there and has a group of friends she describes "is something out of a 90s teen movie."  Morgan is also a closeted lesbian, as she is scared to come out to her friends and family.  In the beginning as she is texting her friends on making plans to meet up for the weekend, she trips over a rock and falls into the sea. She is rescued by a selkie named Keltie. Morgan thinks it is all just a dream, and as a joke she kisses Keltie. It turns out the whole thing was real, and Keltie temporarily becomes a human girl. She starts hanging out with Morgan and they even  start dating. Morgan at first has to keep her dates with Keltie a secret from everyone, and at the same time, Keltie has a problem of her own...

Yesterday I read Anya's Ghost by Vera Brosgol in one sitting. That's usually how long it takes me to read graphic novels, which is a breeze!  This is a urban fantasy/horror story that draws some inspiration from the author's own life. The story is about a Russian-American girl named Anya who is having a hard time at school--from having a friend who is a bad influence, to crushing on a guy who doesn't like her back the same way, and having less than stellar grades. One day when trying to skip school, she falls into a well and finds a skeleton and ghost there. They belong to a girl named Emily Reilly, who died there 90 years earlier. At first they don't get along, but Emily's ghost and Anya become friends, and her life starts to improve a little...or so she thinks.  That's all I can say before it gets into spoiler territory.  This was a really good book and I really enjoyed it! You're probably wondering where the parts inspired by the author's own life...

I went to the library the other day and I picked up a copy of Snapdragon by Kat Leyh on a whim. I did not have it on my TBR, but when I saw it I had to pick it up and read it! The cover looked really cute and I have been craving graphic novels recently. They're easy and quick reads and the stories are almost always so relatable to me! Plus the artwork is gorgeous.   Snapdragon is an urban fantasy, and is about a girl named Snapdragon who has trouble fitting in at her school, and she is obsessed with witch movies. Her dog Good Boy goes missing, and she finds him in the house of an old woman who lives secluded from everyone in her area. Snapdragon thinks the old lady is a witch, and when she goes to her house to get Good Boy back, she sees the lady has skeletons of animals everywhere, and freaks out thinking the old lady will eat her dog. Luckily the old lady doesn't eat her dog, and Snapdragon forms a bond with her after rescuing some baby opossums from her school and gets her...