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Book: “The Night Mother: Volume One” by Jeremy Lambert & Alexa Sharpe (Ill.)
Publishing Info: Oni Press, October 2024
Where Did I Get This Book: I received a copy at ALAAC26
Where You Can Get This Book: WorldCat.org | Amazon | Indiebound
Book Description: Endless night befalls a sleepy seaside town, leaving it to young Madeline Tock to save her community from a threat known only as the Night Mother . . .
The moon is stuck like a broken clock in the midnight sky, the sun a distant memory. No one in this quiet seaside town can remember how long this unnatural darkness has lasted. No one, that is, except for the curious girl who lives in the graveyard, caring for the dead: twelve-year-old Madeline Tock. In gratitude, the departed whisper their worries to her, sounding just like her overprotective but loving father: beware this endless night and she who causes it.
Because there’s someone else who can hear the whispers, too . . . someone whose gown is a map of the cosmos, hair a tangled constellation, eyes like the lights of faraway stars. The Night Mother. Her elemental duty is to gather the souls of the dead in her lantern, then send them to their eternal rest as beautiful moonlight. But when her hunger for power drives her to take souls from the living, Madeline bravely stands up to defend her town and those she loves. Can Madeline help bring back the sun, or will she be lured by the starry promises of this mysterious woman?
Review: Thank you to Oni Press for giving me a copy of this graphic novel at ALAAC26!
My personal goal I made for myself this reading year was trying to do more graphic novels, as I feel like last year I didn’t really do as many as I could have. I made sure to pass by some of my favorite comic publishers while I was at ALA this summer, and a pile of comics caught my eye: “The Night Mother: Volume One” by Jeremy Lambert and Alexa Sharpe (Ill.) had such a captivating cover I had to grab it. It just looked so interesting! And I’m happy to say that when I picked it up, it grabbed my attention almost immediately.
The premise of the story is very unique. In a world where the moon has stopped as it has been taken over by a cruel being called The Night Mother, leaving the world in darkness, a little girl named Madeline Tock can hear the voices of the dead and tries to help them in any way she can. Her adoptive father Barnabus keeps them isolated and keeps her by his side in an overprotective manner, and when a stranger arrives and says that Madeline is the key to stopping The Night Mother, she has to go on a journey to try and save her home and community. For a first volume it has a lot of foundation to lay, and it does so in a very readable manner and in a straight forward way. I got a good sense of the seaside community, of Madeline and her relationship with her father, and the threat that is The Night Mother and how the magical systems in the book work with the moon, the souls of the dead, and the Night Mother herself. The audience of this book is probably on the younger teenage side, so it’s simple, but that simplicity doesn’t take away from the story.
I also liked the characters in this book, from intrepid Madeline to devoted Barnabus to the mysterious newcomer Nura, who has been sent to Madeline to warn her of danger and to help lead her to her destiny. I also have liked what we’ve seen of The Night Mother thus far, as she is scary and ethereal in her darkness and corruption. We haven’t really delved into all of them to much just yet, but I am hoping that now that we have a clear framework of where the story is going to go that in the following volumes we get to really delve into what makes them tick.
And the art in this comic fits the vibe so perfectly. I have seen some works of Alexa Sharpe before, and her style works well with this dreamy and somewhat dark story.
“The Night Mother: Volume One” is a solid start to a fantasy comic series! I am definitely interested in seeing where it goes from here.
Rating 8: A promising start to a new to me fantasy YA graphic series, “The Night Mother” is dreamy and ethereal with a strong premise and some well done world building.
Reader’s Advisory:
“The Night Mother: Volume One” isn’t on many Goodreads lists as of now, but it would fit in on “Fantasy Comics Books”.
The Library Ladies 