Thanks to NetGalley & Random House Children's for the copy in exchange for an honest review.

Fantastic read! I really love this urban fantasy graphic novel, it's so sweet and wholesome. The art style is fantastic and lends itself well to diversifying body types--usually, people are stick figures in graphic novels but not this one. All of the characters are fleshed out and the messages throughout were really sweet and realistic. Stellar read!

I have read the Okay Witch Series by Emma which I thoroughly enjoyed. So you can imagine how ecstatic when a new blog tour for Nell of Gumbling I knew that I really wanted to read it,


Nell was a great main character. There were so many good side characters and my favourite was Schmitty she was hilarious, I admit it did throw me when there were both text and what you would call the normal graphic novel setup but I get why Emma did this as the book would interest both kinds of readers and maybe an introduction into graphic novels. As usual Emma's illustrations were impeccable and I loved the stories at the end of the book these were pure genius.

I am not going to say anything more about the book except to say that throughout there are so many messages which could be used for discussions.

For all the above reasons Nell of Gumbling My Extremely Normal Fairy-tale life gets 4 stars. I would love a revisit to this world.

What an amazing, cute but not cutesy, powerful story. This is set in a fairytale world - or, a section of our world that includes fairytale magic - but the issues and problems are very real here.

I love Nell's circle of friends and how each is important in their own way. Everyone contributes in one way or another, even as Nell is learning that the grass isn't always greener. It's a wonderful message that children won't realise they're absorbing, they'll just be enjoying a fun story!

The art is amazing - I'm a bit face blind and often have trouble with graphics, but everyone here was very clear and distinct and I had no difficulty remembering who was who. It's just cartoony enough without being completely silly, too - a perfect balance.

This is a great read with a great message and I think it's going to be really popular once it goes on sale.

This was a really fun story. The format was very unique; it was a combination of journal entries, storytelling, with a spattering of traditional graphic novel format. I loved Nell and the whole cast of characters, and how they came together for the town they loved. If you love fairytales, definitely check this one out.

Thank you to NetGalley and Random House for this E-arc!

I was immediately enchanted by this book from the first couple of pages. The illustrations are beautiful and truly encapsulate the whimsical aspect of this story. This is one of the first graphic novels I've read that leans more to a novel style which was nice. Nell's journey throughout the book is worth seeing to the end as it doesn't disappoint. I would recommend checking this out when it is published.

In this book, we follow our main character Nell as she goes through her everyday life in the magical town of Gumbling. She goes to school and hangs out at her dads' farm where they harvest stars for power. She's very much looking forward to her upcoming apprenticeship and really hoping that it'll be with her hero and local artist, Wiz Bravo. However, she gets put with Mrs. Birdneck, the town lorekeeper. She tries to make it work but things keep going wrong and now there are people in town trying to make the town into a tourist attraction! Can Nell and her friends stop the developers?

This was really cute and the artwork was fantastic! If you're a fan of magical realism then check this one out!

It took me a little while to get into this one, but I enjoyed it a lot by the end. The voice was clear and delightful, and there was a ton of very sweet humor in it. The art style was very evocative as well. I loved the journal format, and all the characters were so fun, even the mean ones. I liked that there were struggles on a variety of scales, and a lot of difficulties to overcome. The very last tale in the book, too, with the mouse? I feel like everyone needs to read that. Everyone.

Thank you Random House Children's, Labyrinth Road, and NetGalley for the advanced electronic review copy of this book. Colorful, expressive art, interesting world building and characters, and great storyline combine into one delightful read. We learn important lessons along the way about being yourself and that it’s ok to sometimes do something you might not like. Great for upper elementary students.

Review to be posted on blog/other places when the blog tour hits my blog on the 27th of September.

1. The art Since this is a graphic novel I just have to start with the art! I really enjoyed it a lot and I loved how the characters were drawn and how they really came to life. I loved all the details, the sparkles, and more!
2. The diary format along with text with comics Everyone who knows me knows that I love books that are diary formatted. It just makes things a bit more personal and fun for me. But this book isn’t just a diary it is a a mix of media. We get parts with just text and illustrations but we also get comics bits to tell the story. And I adored that. It made for a fun and varied read. Plus, it made it even more personal as the illustrations were drawn by the MC to make her diary even better. Hope that makes sense, haha.
3. Scavenger Hunt I just LOVE a good scavenger hunt and the girls you see on the cover along with others are going on a scavenger hunt to find something very important to the town and I was just rooting for them. The scavenger hunt was oodles of fun and I loved how it brought us throughout all the various parts of the town and surrounding areas. Some were quite easy to figure out and others were tougher. I loved how everyone worked together!
4.The various jobs/intern stuff While Nell wasn’t too happy about her chosen internship and I could understand it, I still love the idea that kids get an internship for a job. From working with a painter to collecting stars (yes, really, that was so awesome and I love what stars can be used for). I love that kids do get somewhat of a say in it, but in the end the teachers choose what you can do. And even though Nell didn’t get her first choice and it was a hobbly ride as she didn’t click with the woman of her job, in the end I think she was happy she had this chance. Because she learned new things and she found that this job isn’t so boring or that the woman is that bad. In fact I have to say that while at first I didn’t see why she was chosen to do this one after a few more chapters I could see it and I was hoping that Nell would see it as well!
5 Four reasons, sorry, I just cannot keep to 5 reasons
5a: A fantastic cast: The various characters and seeing how some go from being kinda frenemies to friends. Plus, I loved Nell’s family and her dads.
5b: A town filled with magic and star-collecting and magical beings? Yes please! I would love love to visit Magical Land of Gumbling! Stay for a while. Maybe forever?
5c: The antagonists were well-written and brought in an extra dose of excitement and adventure.
5d: The lore of the town! There were so many stories about the town and I loved that later we got some more of them!

THIS WAS FILLED WITH SUCH WHIMSY. I LOVED IT.

This was super fun! I really enjoyed this magical land set in the modern era. It was a story filled with fairytales and lore and intrigue as the cast set off on a quest to save Gumbling. I really enjoyed this!

I am a big fan of the Okay Witch graphic novels and was excited to see a new work from the author. This book seemed like it was Okay Witch meets Dork Diaries in its formatting and tone. The illustrations and color scheme were beautiful and cozy. It covers some tough topics like disappointment, friendship, and family. The gentrification topic was an interesting addition that is an idea that I guess children should know about. I think the resolution was maybe a little simple for the scale of the problem, but was a good and hopeful introduction for kids. The lessons were placed in a way that seemed a little preachy and unrealistic, but were important lessons nonetheless. Overall a very enjoyable story that I think kids will enjoy.

Nell Starkeeper isn’t exaggerating when she claims her life is extremely normal. Despite her fairy-tale surroundings, she lives a very relatable life. Maybe your best friend isn’t a fairy and your dads do not run a star farm, but you’ve probably experienced disappointment, jealousy, uncooperative hair, and folks who would profit off of your community/members.

Nell of Gumbling is told in the format of diary-graphic novel hybrid. The record is an effort to practice her craft: visual art in comics form. She’s also hoping to create something museum-worthy for when she becomes a famous artiste, like local idol Wiz Bravo. Where previous attempts to journal left her bored, Nell is sure that her apprenticeship with Wiz will provide content worth archiving.

Nell doesn’t get that apprenticeship—the girl who is better at everything does—but Nell does find plenty of things to write about. One: how disappointed she is to be assigned a woman who looked “like a lady in a portrait in a haunted house” (22) and works out of the old castle dungeon. Two: “rude tourists” (31).

Nell’s disappointment in her assigned apprenticeship creates a strain with her two closest friends who were assigned their first choices.

“Good friends make disappointment easier to take. They’ll try to get you to feel better and help you have fun. But it’s probably hard to be a friend when something good happens to you and not to your friend. I’m afraid Myra and Gil feel like they have to do all this extra work so I’ll feel better. But I don’t know how to tell them I don’t need that.

Why is talking to your friends the simplest thing in the world sometimes, and then other times, there’s nothing more confusing?” (42)

Best friend Myra tries until Nell becomes that much of a downer. “It’s been a couple weeks, and I’m getting a little sick of hearing how awful your apprenticeship is. [….] I just think you could make over your attitude.”(52)

Fortunately for us, Nell’s disappointment isn’t a downer for the reader, because one: we’re experiencing Nell’s apprenticeship with her, and two: there are other things going on. Nell tapes artifacts on the pages like surveys, stories, menus… We spend time with Nell’s very charming family. And then there is the matter of the “rude tourists.”

The tourists in question, “Wet Nails” and “Teeth,” are looking to develop Gumbling into a destination called Castleworld. They will claim to be lost heirs to the throne (that politically no longer exists) to do it. Now this is a situation that should ease Nell and Myra’s strained relationship by bringing them back together over a shared purpose, but it doesn’t. When it comes to figuring out how to respond to the threat Castleworld presents, Nell feels inadequate. Myra can’t be bothered and finds an equally passionate ally in Leabelle. Nell feels replaced (again).

“Should I help, or should I listen” (108)? Nell of Gumbling is rich with relationship wisdom. It models some healthy conversations with parents and teachers, and even with the self. The hard conversations between friends and would-be friends feel authentic in their discomfort. Steinkellner does well in her differentiation between the adult-child conversations and those between young peers—and within each there is variation. I love the hard-won evolution of Nell’s relationship with Mrs. Birdneck.

The only thing to come together with any seeming ease is the book’s climax. It would feel convenient if Steinkellner hadn’t seeded the novel so well. All the pieces (the characters and their experiences) click into place—Nell’s the most impressively of them all. But that isn’t to say there wasn’t a twist and nice complication.

Steinkellner writes complicated well and illustrates it beautifully. I love her noses, and hair; the postures and facial expressions. I like the variety in bodies and skin-tones and personalities. The tales within the tale are lovely, and the puzzles are top-notch. Just as the tales/histories and their artifacts are worth telling and recording, Steinkellner creates the same effect with Nell of Gumbling. The things we can learn from her novel vary: finding our place may take time; not everything or -one is as they seem at first; everyone has something to bring to the table (or a cool 100-year-old puzzle); cultures and people are not to be exploited; “the only people who win if we feel too shy or too unqualified or too unimportant to fight are people like the Greatman-Bigbys” (106); friendships can be complicated; and celadon is 0.2% grayer than verdigris which is 0.6% bluer than celadon (50).

Stainkellner writes an exchange between Nell and her Pa where she tells him that she thinks she didn’t get the apprenticeship with Wiz Bravo because “I’m bad at art. A kid at school said my art wasn’t ‘realistic’.” (It was Voila Lala who said it, and yes, the naming in this novel is brilliant.) Pa replies, “I think your drawings have a lot of realism to them. You capture things the way you see them and create a world that is vibrant and interesting and funny and unmistakably made by you.” (18). This is Nell of Gumbling: vibrant and interesting and funny and unmistakable.

+

Nell of Gumbling: My Extremely Normal Fairy-Tale Life has the realism that should appeal to contemporary fiction readers who love friendship, family, and school drama as well as food. Fantasy readers will adore the imaginative world and those who populate it. The artwork (style and palette) is really appealing. It’s a great novel to tempt prose and comic -readers into trying something different; though I think comic-readers will have the easier time navigating the novel. Nell of Gumbling would be a fantastic choice for middle-grade book clubs.

Something I really appreciate about how Emma Steinkellner approaches the prose-comic hybrid is how she gives us both descriptive text and visual representation. Nell of Gumbling could be a fun option for visual literacy or practicing metaphors and similes (e.g. “Her neck reminds me of violin strings”(22).)

This was a lot more wordy than a typical graphic novel, which I didn't particularly like, but the story was still fun and engaging. The character growth and plot were predictable, but the worldbuilding was well done and interesting. I really liked the original fairy tales and all the small details.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for my e-ARC of Nell of Gumbling!

𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐃 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐈𝐅 𝐘𝐎𝐔
🦄 love magical creatures of all sorts
📖 enjoy comic strips
🏰 have a castle in your hometown
⭐️ use stars to power your city

• 𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐈𝐓’𝐒 𝐀𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐓

To everyone else, the Magical Land of Gumbling is something out of fairy tales. But to Nell Starkeeper, it’s just home. Sure, the town community center might be a castle, her dads run a star farm, and her best friend Myra is a fairy, but Nell is much more interested in finding out if she’ll get the seventh grade apprenticeship of her dreams with world-famous artist Wiz Bravo.

She’s pretty sure her entire life has been RUINED when she’s instead matched with boring old Mrs. Birdneck in the town archives. And of course her perfect rival Leabelle gets to work with Wiz, and mean girl Viola won’t let Nell forget it. Meanwhile, suddenly Myra seems more into hanging out with Leabelle and saving the town from some weird strangers who keep talking about turning Gumbling into a fancy resort than being friends with Nell anymore. Can Nell find a way to save everything that makes her world magical, while figuring out where she belongs in it?

• 𝐌𝐘 𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐒

This was such a cute read that I ended up reading it in just a few short hours! I loved Nell! She was very relatable in so many ways, including her attitude about several things. I loved seeing her grow throughout the story though. I also loved that the bad guys were people you would never suspect, especially in a fairytale world! The pictures were all super cute and helped the story progress in a really fun way. Kids and adults alike will love Nell and the stories about Gumbling! I hope to see a second book soon!

This was a great middle-grade book, and I loved the main character!
Thank you to Netgalley for this eARC.

I received an electronic ARC from Random House Children's Publishing through NetGalley.
Readers meet Nell who lives in a town filled with magical people. She shares her life with us as journal entries. We meet her family and her two best friends along with other classmates to begin the story. She also includes a map of their town - Gumbling. All of this is to emphasize how normal everyone is no matter what species they are part of. Nell, Myra and Gil are excited and waiting for their class apprenticeship assignments. Myra and Gil are thrilled with theirs and Nell is crushed by hers. Now that Steinkellner has set the stage, readers dive in to see how the story unfolds. There are wonderful characters as expected in fairy tales and an evil force wanting to take over their town. Magic is studied and considered to help in the fight to save their town.
I appreciate the matter of fact way Nell shares her story and brings readers along on the adventures. Readers will connect with her friendship struggles and insecurities and celebrate when she finds her confidence and learns to appreciate her own gifts. The title says it all - this is a normal set of characters who happen to belong to a variety of species who love their home and do their best to get along.

What a cute book! For any librarians, this is a PSA that I am categorizing this book in fiction not as a graphic novel, as I consider it to be a good example of very highly illustrated fiction, with a couple comic panels throughout.
The story, though fantasy, has a good core of classic middle school friendship problems, and the main character will be deeply relatable to a lot of readers with her well-meaning mistakes and desire to be better. I will definitely be recommending to grades 4-8!

This was a little different from this author's The Okay Witch; it's more like Teri Libenson's Emmie and Friends in format, with some pages that have more text, and some that embrace the graphic novel panel style.

Nell lives in a magical town, where one of her dads is a star farmer. She's upset that she has to do an internship with the local historian, because she really wants to work with the local artist, since she loves to draw. She gets pulled into a mystery, and there are two people who want to "develop" the town, and she has to stop them before they change Gumbling's way of life.

My middle school students would probably read this, but it seems more suited to elementary students. Didn't quite cross the line into twee, but had a foot poised to step over it.

This was an adorable graphic novel about a girl who lives in a small town where fantasy is real, but in an average sort of way. The story starts when Nell gets placed with a boring archivist for her school internship, when the one she really ones is with a famous artist. What follows is a tale of friendship, gentrification, and learning to find the beauty in history. The character designs and illustrations are fantastic and hold tons of personality. The story itself is incredibly sweet and heartwarming. My only critique would be that the pacing sometimes feels a little slow when Nell is recounting the legends she finds in the archives. All in all, definitely worth a read.

Cute coming of age story about a young comic artist who lives in a magical world filled with faeries, witches, magic, and starlight farms. Told through the medium of an illustrated journal, the story follows Nell and her friends through their after-school apprenticeship program. Nell, who wanted to be assigned as the apprentice of a local artist, is horrified to discover she has instead been assigned to the village lore keeper. As Nell learns to appreciate both her mentor and local history, she and her friends also manage to save their magical city-state from nefarious non-magical property developers (just go with it)