Jen Thomas

Boys are shapeshifters and girls are witches--or so everyone keeps telling Aster, who has been studying spells in secret while pressure builds for him to conform to the norms of his magical community. According to legend, the last time a man bucked tradition and used witchcraft, it backfired, and the culprit--Aster's great-uncle Mikasi--turned monstrous before disappearing. When some of the clan's adolescent boys go missing in the forest that separates the enchanted community from the "regular" world, Aster and his new non-magic friend Charlotte (called Charlie) learn that Mikasi is behind the disappearances. Together they save the clan and persuade the community to rethink its strict adherence to gender roles. (Aster's grandmother says of her brother, "I regret what we did to Mikasi every day. It was not his magic that was wrong, but what we denied him.") This graphic novel's clear panel outlines, subdued hues, and balanced paneled layouts allow the story and page-turns to progress at a steady pace. Various typefaces highlight different characters' voices and personalities, and word balloons weave in and out of panels seamlessly, allowing extended moments of exposition to flow atop context presented visually. Close-up perspectives reveal characters' facial expressions and feelings not explicitly stated in the dialogue, and an invented magical language is represented by symbols within word balloons. (Note that Ostertag's culturally ambiguous world includes traditions resembling Native American vision quests, making for a fuzzy distinction between fantasy and exoticized reality.) elisa gall