Millie of the Manor

Millie of the Manor manages to combine three well-respected graphic novel genres — mystery, making friends, and mental health (specifically, coping with anxiety) — successfully. It sounds like a difficult goal, but Karina Evans and Andrea Bell make lead character Amy understandable and sympathetic from the get-go. She likes mysteries, and she’s socially awkward. It’s easy to tell when she gets lost in her head, as she remains in full color while the rest of the world around her goes grey. Then her classmate Reagan invites her to a murder mystery birthday party. It’s something Amy will definitely enjoy, if she can get over her anxiety. The comic format allows for us to join the kids in imagining the mansion murder setting, as that’s what’s drawn when they’re “in character”. And pretending to be someone else named Millie and enjoying the mystery helps Amy. It’s rather obvious how this is all going to play out, but taking the journey with Amy is entertaining and encouraging. My only quibble is that, while it’s obvious Amy’s reading about Sherlock Holmes, from the quotes, she’s not reading the original stories but some kind of modern sequel. Still, I loved seeing her learn to shine wit...