Goodnight Punpun, Volume 1

May 15, 2016
Grades 10-1 Punpun loves Aiko. He will do anything for her and plans to someday find a way to travel to other worlds so that he can save her after Earth is used up. But fifth grade is full of hardships: parents fighting, friends looking for porn, puberty. As Punpun tries to survive the year, life changes rapidly around him, leaving him wondering who he is. This coming-of-age story blends fantasy and reality into a strangely compelling tale. Punpun and his family are drawn as birdlike stick figures rather than humans, though no one notices. The humans are all caricatures, which makes their happy smiles and their painful grimaces even more poignant. The emotions here are real, even when God is popping in, or when the adults around Punpun suddenly decide to play hide-and-seek. None of the things that happen to Punpun and his friends are particularly strange, but the way Asano presents them is, which helps give readers the same off-kilter feeling that Punpun has. A worthy addition to indie comics collections.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)