One Fine Day, Vol. 1
Nanai the dog, Guru the cat, and Rang the little mouse all live with No-ah, an amateur magician. Their life is happy but sometimes chaotic, whether they're baking cookies, playing in the rain, or expecting a visit from No-ah's nemesis. In this manhwa (Korean comic) the scratchy, loose artwork perfectly complements the offbeat slice-of-life stories. The animal main characters are sometimes shown as very pretty little kids and sometimes as animals, with lots of detail and asides on each page. The tales are short but just complex enough for older elementary-school readers, and the artwork is not too babyish for middle-school readers. A few slightly off-color elements—one character says “Sound off like you got a pair,” and in another story the dog and cat, both boys, are tricked into kissing—are only played for laughs and don't make the story too mature for the intended audience or negate the all-ages rating. Give this to fans of super-cute manga like Sayuri Tatsuyama's Happy Happy Clover and Kiyohiko Azuma's Yotsuba. Grades 4-7. --Snow Wildsmith