Pilu of the Woods

Pilu of the Woods was another nominee in the Middle Grades category of the Excellence in Graphic Literature Awards. It is a sweet and moving book, featuring a girl named Willow. She has experienced a big loss in her life, and she contains a tempest of emotions, which she tends to unleash on her older sister. One day she is out in the woods with her dog Chicory when she meets up with a tree spirit named Pilu.

It turns out that Pilu has run away from home and is lost in the world. Willow takes it upon herself to help Pilu find her way back, seeing many of her own experiences embodied by the tree spirit. Pilu is literally a force of nature though, and many of the emotions she and Willow both feel start to take physical manifestations, leading to great peril.

I do not want to reveal much more, to prevent spoiling the story, but I do want to impress just how human and heartfelt this book is. It deals with complex emotional relationships and does so in nuanced and realistic ways. I found it very easy to relate and care about these characters, and they are portrayed in vibrant ways. The artwork, with its manga-inspired characters and muted coloring, excellently conveys feeling and emotion, and the storytelling is very kinetic.

In retrospect, I can see many similarities to the classic movie My Neighbor Totoro, which I have watched with my kids about 100 times, as both works feature a pair of sisters, a professor father, and an encounter with a forest spirit. Also, both have a powerful emotional impact and strong characters. This book is not derivative in any way to the movie, and I think it is a great companion piece to it for anyone who is a Studio Ghibli fan. I loved this book, and I feel it has much to say about loss, family relationships, and dealing with turbulent events. It's a real gem.

Pilu of the Woods is the impressive graphic novel debut of Mai K. Nguyen, who also has a couple of self-published comics to her credit. She speaks more about her work on this book in this interview.

All of the reviews I have read about this book have been positive. Kirkus Reviews called it "A lovely graphic novel focusing on confronting our inner feelings and how we express them." Samantha Puc wrote, "This middle-grade graphic novel will appeal to readers of all ages, but its aesthetics are firmly rooted in the perspectives of its characters, which is utterly delightful." Publishers Weekly added, "Effectively navigating grief, anger, and their place in the world, the characters in this debut show without didacticism how to engage with tough emotions."

Pilu of the Woods was published by Oni Press, and they offer more info about it here.

Rosalie Lightning

In my life exactly three graphic novels have made me cry, this being the third. Rosalie Lightning is about a couple dealing with the death of their almost-2-year-old-daughter, and as a father of a just-past-1-year-old there is certainly a lot of empathy I could have to this tale. But just saying that this book tells an emotionally charged story sells it far short. The subject matter is raw and very human, but how it is presented is what makes this book exceptional.

Its author, Tom Hart, is a long-time comics artist and also a teacher. He has drawn comics about Hutch Owen for decades now, and he also runs the Sequential Arts Workshop in Gainesville, Florida. He puts all of his experience and expertise in display in fine fashion throughout the book. He varies his style from a cartoony, big-fingered style to portray the past and a much more scratchy, dark style to convey his present. He borrows styles, excerpts, and quotations from classic works by EC Comics, Tezuka, and Miyazaki (among others) to create a common visual language and a set of symbols that appear throughout the book, striking very specific notes at opportune times. Not only is this a masterful comic, it is also a master class on how to use comics to their full effect.

All of the reviews of this book I have read have been glowing. Publishers Weekly gave it a starred review and called it "a masterpiece—and a luminous tribute to a brief, beautiful life." Kirkus Reviews summed up, "A bracing, deeply saddening journey into death and loss whose wryly affirmative resolution, “joy breaking through the storm clouds,” is nothing but hard won." Rob Clough wrote, "The book can be described as any number of things: a prayer, a diary, an extended ritual, the act of creation used as as a way to face tragedy, a howl of anger and despair, and an emphatic display of gratitude both to those who helped him and Leela and the art that helped comfort him."

Rosalie Lightning was published by St. Martin's Press, and they have a preview and more info about it here.