Friday, October 1, 2021

ParaNorthern: And the Chaos Bunny A-hop-calypse by Stephanie Cooke, artwork by Mari Costa

ParaNorthern:  And the Chaos Bunny A-hop-calypse by Stephanie Cooke, artwork by Mari Costa
Format: 
E-ARC
Publisher:  HMH Kids/Etch
Number of pages:  240 pages
Published:  July 13th, 2021
Source: Elysse Wagner from Books Forward 

While helping her mother at the families coffee shop, Abby witnesses her sister being bullied in the alley.  When Abby steps in to check on her, she inadvertently opens a portal, releasing chaos bunnies into the supernatural town of North Haven.  With the help of her three friends, Hannah the ghost, Gita the wolf-girl and Silas the pumpkinhead, Abby hopes to find a way to close the portal and prevent the rabid bunnies from destroying their town.

I don't read nearly enough graphic novels, despite enjoying the illustrations from the ones that I have read.  ParaNorthern was one of those books that I was so intrigued by.  Partially because of our weather finally starting to move toward Fall like temperatures and also because I was really in a mood for something supernatural.   And come on, a witch, a wolf-girl, a ghost and a pumpkinhead combating evil bunnies,  sounds like such a winning combination.  One of the first things that struck me about this graphic novel is that it contains a very diverse group of characters, Abby is a person of color and Hannah, the girl wearing a headscarf is a recent ghost (not the dead kind) immigrant from another dimension.  Next I really picked up on the Fall colors, the purple and orange and browns of the coffee shop.  It really reminded me of a video game my kiddo recommended called Coffee Talk.    Mix this with pumpkinhead trying to encourage people to have a gourd-free holiday, I don't know but it just made me chuckle, and think about pumpkin spice latte's, which like Silas I have mixed feelings about.  Overall, this is a very cute story, including those creepy chaos bunnies that will defiantly give you Halloween-ish vibes.  

**A huge thank you to Elysse Wagner from Books Forward for the E-ARC**

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