Book Review - Lucky G and the Melancholy Quokka: How Play Therapy can Help Children with Depression by Amy Wilinski-Lyman (Author), Leela Green (Illustrator)

'eye catching illustrations helping a young person understand the difficult topic of depression.'

An ideal book to help a young person understand the difficult topic of depression whilst showing them that they are not alone in having off days, feeling down or lost. This lovely book cleverly uses a zoo instead of a school, using different bright and colorful animals that young readers can relate to helping them to open up and discuss how they are feeling.

The eye catching illustrations follow Lucky G, as he goes round the zoo asking for advice from the other zoo inhabitants on how Blue was feeling, demonstrating to the young reader that people who care and know them well will be concerned and notice a difference in their attitude and behaviour. Lucky G will help them feel that they can reach out and ask for help from someone when they need it. With the animals telling them it is okay to feel this way, I feel that they will respond to the advice rather than a person telling them.

A brilliant descriptive and excellent written book in short rhyming paragraphs and a book that can be read time after time, helping a young reader suffering from depression or knowing someone who is.

Kindle - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08MCMZ2F7 
Nook - https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/lucky-g-and-the-melancholy-quokka-amy-wilinski-lyman/1137995656?ean=2940162647904 
Kobo - https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/lucky-g-and-the-melancholy-quokka 
Gplay - https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Amy_Wilinski_Lyman_Lucky_G_and_the_Melancholy_Quok?id=9GMGEAAAQBAJ 
Paperback - https://www.amazon.com/dp/1615995412 
Hardback - https://www.amazon.com/dp/1615995420 
Audible - https://www.audible.com/pd/B08R45BFG9 

Even the happiest creature on Earth can get the sads! Lucky G makes a trip down under to help out a struggling quokka. Join them on their journey to better mental health.  

Lucky G is a big bird on a big mission: To help kids cope with their mental and physical challenges.

Ever since I knew of its existence, I’ve wanted to read Tim Burton’s The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy & Other Stories. Unfortunately, my library doesn't own a copy so I had to order it through Interlibrary Loan. Of course, after all of that effort it was a bit of a letdown to discover that it was only 115 pages long. But this short little book did deliver on the quirky, dark humor that we’ve all come to expect from Tim Burton. Organized into small rhymes and stories, these are creepy but hilarious (if morbid humor is your thing) vignettes. A/N: Parents beware if you take issue with your kids reading about death, patricide, suicide, etc.

What I'm Currently Reading: Solaris by Stanislaw Lem

Gorey is a magician who evokes humor without writing any jokes; large country houses as sets by showing nothing but a chair, or a bit of a wall; Victorian doorstoppers with only a handful of sentences. It's not at all surprising that his production of Dracula was a hit. 

One thing that comes up in the books about Gorey is this idea of him as the godfather of Goth which I don't see: the Gothic for him is always mixed with the humor. The modern Goth seems more akin to the Romantic poets. While individuals have a sense of humor, I don't feel like the aesthetic does. Goth is Edgar Allan Poe not Oscar Wilde's Canterville Ghost.

Anyway, if anyone has other authors who combine Gothic and humor, please let me know. I would hate to think that I had missed someone.

Personal copy

Couldn't sleep at night. Wanted to read something with a big font (The Princess Bride has such a tiny font). Started this book. What can I say. Another wonderful example of tstl heroine. 
I was yelling in my head, "Don't, you moron! Don't go out alone at night!" And of course Santana went out and got hurt. No brain activity at all. And did she learn? No. She did it again and again. It was painful to read. After all that I started to question Maddox's sanity. How could he love a woman so dumb?

When Kousuke injures his arm while saving Ryouto in a snowboarding incident during a trip, Ryouto feels guilty and helps take care of him. Ryouto typically avoids Kousuke out of jealousy because the girls Ryouto likes always like Kousuke instead, but this interaction reveals a new side to Kousuke that Ryouto's never seen and forces him to reconsider his feelings toward him.

The BL (boys' love) genre is one plagued with consent issues, unfortunately. Starting a new BL manga always has me wondering if I'm going to run into something, and the answer is usually yes. Such is the case here. Kousuke is aggressive, forcing himself on Ryouto early on in the story. He eventually backs off completely once he realizes he's scared Ryouto, only making contact again when Ryouto reaches out. They enter into a trial relationship at Ryouto's request where Kousuke precedes to push boundaries by trying to move things faster than Ryouto wants or by smalls displays of PDA that Ryouto's not ready for yet. But these issues end once Ryouto ends the trial relationship and asks to start a real relationship. It is at that point the story also gets much more enjoyable.

Watching Ryouto and Kousuke navigate their new relationship when a pretty big challenge pops up was fun and it brought a place I love into the mix. Kousuke loves skateboarding and plans to go pro. He gets an opportunity to train at Whistler for a year and the two struggle with how a long distance relationship would work. They both have conflicted feelings about him going and try to ignore the issue at first before it quickly becomes obvious that's not going to work.

Every mention of Whistler was fun for me because I've been on those mountains a number of times, so I actually recognized the places they were talking about. There wasn't a ton of Whistler talk, but it was a nice bonus for me.

There is an issue in the extras which brings the story down for me though. While the story already has the above mentioned consent issues, the extra adds a flashback that makes things much worse. The extra is from Kousuke's point of view and shows how he's been silently pining for Ryouto the past 3 years.

The whole thing left me feeling gross. Scenes like that are why part of me is always wary while I'm reading any BL manga for the first time. I never know when sexual assault is suddenly going to appear.

Despite that, I enjoyed the series overall. The art was great. And once the couple was together (after the sexual assault and boundary pushing was finished), they were fun to see navigating their relationship. But Powder Snow Melancholy does have consent issues and sexual assault which will, understandably, make it a hard pass for some.