Melissa's Reviews > Lunar Boy

This book, y'all. Five stars, no notes.

I had this on my radar because it matched a Paperbacks n Frybread "Decolonize Your Bookshelf" prompt - MG novel with a queer MC - and then bumped it up to read during the Trans Rights Readathon. Out in May, so get your pre-orders in now!

The artwork is BEAUTIFUL, with such lush colorwork (and one panel that I would swear is a direct call back to the Little Prince, I see you there). Indu, having been found on a moon and adopted by a mom on a spaceship, is used to the little community on the ship. But when his mom gets married and they move to New Earth, Indu is very much the odd one out, as the "Lunar Boy." He doesn't understand the language well (he has passive fluency of Chinese Indonesian, but doesn't speak or read it), his classmates are standoffish, and he feels like he's losing touch with his mom. All those little problems of being about 11 or 12 are just magnified. But he starts to find friends within the local queer community - facilitated by his language tutor, Aminah, who is AMAZING, LOVE HER - and learn about the rich history of his culture. And even has a little baby romance with his penpal by the end of the book, so sweet.

Just a little bit of a content warning that there is a bit of queerphobia shown by some of Indu's classmates on page - it's pretty brief, and seems a bit conflated by Indu being a kid "from the moon" (literally) and we all know how middle-schoolers behave toward kids who are different, so just FYI for younger readers who might not expect it.