OLIVIA WOLF AND THE MOLDY SANDWICH

Something strange is afoot in Monstrocity, where monsters and humans live together in harmony…for the most part.

Classes are about to start at Monstrocity Academy. Professor Swamp, the first to arrive, has a horrifying encounter with an off-screen terror. The book’s narrator explains: “It’s best you don’t see what happened to Professor Swamp. It’s far too gruesome….” But it’s a normal morning in the rest of Monstrocity. Olivia Wolf boards the bus for Monstrocity Academy. When a noxious gas beast attacks the city (“These things sometimes happen in Monstrocity”), the young werewolf and her vampire buddy leap into action to save the day. At school, after Olivia’s teacher, a zombie, gives a lecture on mold and decomposition, the students learn that Fred the Fly’s six-month-old cheese sandwich has gone missing. Could the missing professor and the sandwich be related? It turns out they are. Fred’s sandwich, now a giant mold monster, threatens to overrun the city, so the students work together to put things right again. Translated from Spanish, this fast-paced graphic novel features colorful pages with one to four panels; text is minimal. Monstrocity’s monsters are generally smiling and are lovable, relatable, and definitely not scary, and the imaginative dangers they face are slightly spooky, slightly gooey, and just plain fun. A list of character bios prefaces the work.

A sweetly scary reminder that friends, even monsters, must look out for each other.