Now that I have written the above, I should start back at the beginning. The storylines melt into each other and sometimes you are thrown out of the flow when the new scene does not feel naturally introduced. The other part is how there is no natural stopping point. The bumps come from the fact I was curious where was Snapdragons father? And wondered why Jacks and Jessie never ran into each other over the years? And did Jacks and Vi run into each other? After all, Snap and her mom Vi, seem to live close to Jacks. While there a few bumps to the storyline, it is a neat story about being yourself as well as about friends and family. (See the difference?)įinally: Witches are real, and Snapdragon by Kat Leyh proves it. It is a not so obviously crazy, off the wall realistic fantasy. Second: This is not an obviously crazy, off the wall, fantasy.

Regardless of the seemingly obviously crazy, off the wall, fantasy look to it. (Feb.One: This is a First Second Graphic Novel. Full of magic and humor, this intersectional, layered tale offers joyful and affirming depictions of social outsiders and comfortably complicated families. In bright, dynamic art, Leyh packs Snapdragon’s world with an array of wonderful characters, full of quirks and contradictions, who represent a variety of ethnicities, sexualities, and gender expressions. She also discovers that Jacks is deeply connected to her own family-and just might be an actual witch.

As the self-possessed girl develops an interest in vertebrate anatomy, she spends time in her trailer park home evolving a meaningful friendship with trans neighbor Lu, honing an interest in frightening tales, and navigating the fallout of her hardworking single mother’s most recent relationship. The purported witch, an older woman named Jacks who raced motorcycles in her youth, makes a deal with Snapdragon-Jacks will help Snapdragon care for the possums if Snapdragon helps Jacks with her work harvesting road kill, then cleaning and selling the articulated skeletons online. The next day, encountering a dead opossum mother and her living babies, Snapdragon takes them back to the house for help.

When middle schooler Snapdragon’s dog goes missing, Snapdragon dares to enter the house of a reputed witch and finds the hound recuperating from an accident.

Snapdragon by kat leyh