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Many Girls Like Ponies, But…

More interesting reads we came across at this year’s L.A. Time Festival of Books. The Glitter Dragons — Dragon Girls is a new fantasy series for young readers, written by Maddy Mara. The first book is Azima the Gold Glitter Dragon.  “Azmina, Willa, and Naomi are thrilled to learn they’re Glitter Dragon Girls. Summoned to the Magic Forest by its magnificent ruler, the Tree Queen, the girls quickly find out their dragon-selves have unbelievable abilities. They can soar above the treetops, breathe glitter-y bursts of fire, and roar loud enough to shake the ground.With this newfound magic comes a big responsibility, however. As Dragon Girls, they are sworn protectors of the forest and must help keep it safe from the troublesome Shadow Sprites, who are determined to take the forest’s magic for their own.” All this and more are available now in trade paperback from Scholastic. Roar!

image c. 2022 Scholastic

Working Your Meow-scles.

It seems like cats are getting into all sorts of business these days — in mangas at least. Check out Cat Massage Therapy by Haru Hisakawa. “Nekoyama, worn out after another long day at the office, stops at a therapeutic massage parlor — only to discover that it’s run by a cat! Not only that, but the cat actually does the massaging?! As the professional ‘meowsseur’ digs soft toe beans into Nekoyama’s aching muscles, his heart warms and his worries melt away. This is only the beginning, as he and other world-weary workers are about to meet the other feline professionals who have mastered pawfully cute techniques to reduce human stress.” Available now in full color from Seven Seas.

image c. 2022 Seven Seas Entertainment

This Bummer is Actually Pretty Cool

Jylene Morgan is an author we met at this year’s L.A. Times Festival of Books. She creates illustrated stories for children — based on the real-life adventures of her family. Her first book is called Bummer: Our Pet Bighorn Sheep, and it’s exactly that — the story of her family raising a wild bighorn sheep from infancy when it wanders onto their rural farm. The second book, Bummer and the Nanny Goat (illustrated by Matthew Mew) carries on with the story as Bummer tries to learn getting along with a grouchy female goat. Ms. Morgan also took things in a more fanciful direction with her book There Was A Moose On Clifford Street. Visit her  official web site to find out more and hear more stories.

image c. 2022 Jylene Morgan

More Equal Than The Others?

Over the years there have been many adaptations of satirist George Orwell’s famous work Animal Farm, both on stage and on screen. Most often, each of them have deviated in some way from the author’s original story, an allegory for the Russian Revolution and the subsequent rise of centralized power under Joseph Stalin. Now we’ve been informed by Animation World Network that Andy Serkis (Lord of the Rings, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle) and his company The Imaginarium have joined up with Aniventure (Riverdance) to create a new CGI version of the story that Mr. Serkis will direct. It’s currently in production at Cinesite. No word on a release date — yet!

image c. 2022 The Imaginarium

Friends with Fur

At WonderCon we met Ralph Lee Miranda, one of the minds behind Oh, Bubba — a series of animated shorts. Here’s what the makers say: “Oh, Bubba is an animated series on YouTube. It stars our titular character Bubba Lu [the gorilla], Grumpy, and their hooman friends as they navigate this modern world together, often with hilarious results and commentary…  Think of it as The Muppets meets Friends.” You can also find out more about the series at IMDB.

image c. 2022 Drawn of Time

Beauty in Complexity

Another art crew we met at WonderCon goes by the name of Star Salts — interesting, hmm? Jackie (artist!) and Ian (manager!) specialize in densely complex tapestries featuring pokemon, anime creatures, and other popular cartoon subjects. Then those designs become part of their line of Hawaiian-style shirts, lanyards, pillow cases, and even (how timely!) face-masks. They’ve also branched out into enamel pins and such. Visit their web site to see the latest.

image c. 2022 by Star Salts

What, We Worry?

We met Janie Stapleton at WonderCon this year. On her web site, she describes her art like this: “I find inspiration in nature and people watching, and I like my work to strike an awkward balance of gallows humor and bright colors. My work explores emotional intelligence, neurodivergence, and interpersonal connection through lighthearted drawings and comics.” And so she’s created various funny-animal-themed online comics like Animal Logic and The Adventures of Anxiety & Mouse. More recently, she’s run some successful Kickstarter campaigns to release her comics in paperback book form. See if they can help you relax.

image c. 2022 by Janie Stapleton

Plushies with Purpose

At a recent convention we came across the Creep Cat Toy Company — by their own description, “…founded by two independent LGBTQ+ artists with a passion for funky little creatures and a knack for design! We are a pair of artists who work mainly in craft and concept design and are trying our hand at turning our work into something larger.” Which is mainly a collection of interesting plush animal toys, often featuring species you don’t see very often — like hyenas long-legged maned wolves. The collection also includes their line of Pride Gators, designed to showcase the owner’s personality. “With each purchase from Creep Cat you are directly supporting small artists and helping us live out our dream!”.

image c. 2022 Creep Cat Toy Company

Cold Reality

Look, there’s no way we can describe The Misewa Saga better than the publishers do — so here’s what they say: “Narnia meets traditional Indigenous stories of the sky and constellations in an epic middle-grade fantasy series from award-winning author David Robertson.” The first book in the series is called The Barren Grounds. Two children of the First Nations in Canada find themselves torn away from their families and forced into foster care by the government — a sad reality for many indigenous children in North America. Unhappy with their new “home”, the children search for a haven… and instead, find a magic portal into another world. There, they meet an anthropomorphic fisher (big weasel!) named Ochek, who sets out to teach them how to survive in the frozen wasteland that surrounds his village. Soon, accompanied by “a sassy squirrel”, the two humans set off on a dangerous mission to bring summertime back to the barren grounds. More books follow in the series as well, so look for them.

image c. 2022 Penguin Random House