Super Boba Café
by Nidhi Chanani; illus. by the author; color by Sarah Davidson
Middle School    Amulet/Abrams    224 pp.
10/23    9781419759567    $24.99
Paper ed.  9781419759574    $16.99
e-book ed.  9781647005795    $15.29

After an embarrassing mishap on social media, almost-fourteen-year-old Aria unplugs for the summer. She visits Nainai, her Taiwanese grandmother, in San Francisco, to help run her boba shop. When Bao, the café cat, gives birth to eight kittens, Aria attracts more customers by rebranding the shop as a boba cat café. But there are mysteries that she can’t make sense of: prairie dogs hang out in the shop’s back lot, Nainai gets strangely upset when the café fails to close on time, and the shop’s kitchen is strictly off limits. Aria eventually learns that for nearly forty years her grandmother has been staving off an underground monster that rocks the city, triggering huge earthquakes unless it is fed—and she decides to help free Nainai from this burden. Chanani’s (Pashmina, rev. 1/18; Jukebox) inventive graphic novel, featuring an endearing granddaughter-grandmother relationship, explores themes of healing, making new friends, taking personal responsibility, and communicating across generations. The illustrations feature plenty of warmth and cartoonish cuteness. Scene-setting depictions of San Francisco highlight iconic sites, including the Golden Gate Bridge and the Palace of Fine Arts; images of bakeries, eateries, and small shops in residential neighborhoods create a vibrant sense of community.

From the January/February 2024 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.