in which I read Snapdragon by Kat Leyh
I don’t read a lot of MG, but when I do, they’re always so well-crafted and AMAZING and it makes me wonder if I’m just very lucky with my reads so far. Snapdragon is a middle grade comic that is so good that I’m annoying some of our children’s section staff by changing around our April anniversary promotion so that I could include it in, and feature it in our store catalog.
In this comic, a young girl named Snapdragon discovers that her town witch, Jacks, is really just an old lady who sells the skeletons of roadkill online. Snap doesn’t get along with most of the kids at school, but somehow she likes Jacks just fine, and they make a deal - Jacks will teach her how to take care of the litter of baby opossums Snap rescued, and in return, Snap will help Jacks with her work. The more time they spend together, though, the more Snap begins to realise that Jacks might be a real witch after all.
Kat Leyh is known as one of the creators behind Lumberjanes (where kids who are hard-core lady-types have adventures and declare FRIENDSHIP TO THE MAX!) so it doesn’t surprise me that I love the representation in Snapdragon. When Snap’s mother tells her to make a friend, she befriends Lulu, who comes out as a trans girl in the story. Snap herself isn’t a “girly girl”, and I love the way she’s represented in this matter-of-fact way - like there’s nothing wrong with being girly, but there’s nothing wrong with being anything but that, either. The conversation she has with her mom about her gender expression is perfect, too - kid!me would easily relate to her worry about not knowing how to “act right”, while adult!me love and appreciate her mother’s response to that. And Jacks! I wish I could be just a fraction as cool as her when I’m that old.
I’m really into the art - especially the little details like Lulu hanging out on the roof with a stash of Seventeen magazines and a G1 pony, cluing readers in on her personality before she properly befriends Snap. Geebee (or Good Boy) is the cutest, and I love a certain fox, and a buck that just won’t leave, too. But my favourite thing about this comic, besides the great characters and rep, are the fact that this is a story focusing on the growing friendship between two characters from different generations, that this is a middle grade comic where the adults are portrayed as… regular human beings? Well, regular human beings that might be witches, in Jacks’ case. Oh, and there’s the fact that the main message that I took away from Snapdragon is one of love and kindness and acceptance, and that gave me the warm fuzzies. After all, this is a magical story about hard-core lady-types finding friends… in unexpected places.
* cross-posted from my wordpress