Becoming Boba

Ho (We Who Produce Pearls) and Ren (Night Market Rescue) team up for a kawaii-styled look at cultural belonging that features bubble teas as protagonists. In tradition-steeped Milk Tea Town, “residents prided themselves on their subtle shades of brown, quality ingredients, and classic milk tea flavor,” standards that the whole community upholds. But the birth of Mindy, a boba baby displaying bands of green, white, and pink, heralds a generation of multihued beverages that “many thought were questionably probably not quite milk teas at all!” Wanting to be “milk tea enough,” Mindy takes classes and researches the beverage’s multifaceted history, only to find that “the most classic milk tea flavor is one that keeps on changing.” Tea-oriented puns (a tea ancestor’s running away with a pudding “caused quite the stir”) pepper this message-forward read that includes historical beats. Bright mixed media and digital art foregrounds anthropomorphized boba cups that feature tapioca-ball eyes. Contextualizing comics panels and creators’ notes conclude. Ages 4–8. Author’s agent: Caryn Wiseman, Andrea Brown Literary. illustrator’s agent: Jennifer Rofé, Andrea Brown Literary. (June)