What does a pink blob-shaped queen with a ravenous sweet tooth, a butler with a mustache who may or may not be a bipedal panda, and a talking star have in common? Well, they're all main characters in HF Brownfield and Kayla Coombs' new children's graphic novel Quinnelope and the Cookie King Catastrophe, of course.
The book follows Quinnelope (said blob-shaped queen, their name pronounced similar to Penelope) and her two companions, Bub and Star, as they work to uncover why every single cookie in the town was replaced with cake (apparently an unprecedented tragedy for the queen). This takes the trio on a cavity-causing adventure to rescue the Cookie King — the only person in the land able to make cookies taste good — from the infamous Cake Criminal.
This is Brownfield and Coombs' first graphic novel, but thanks to their seamless partnership from more than 8,000 miles apart — Coombs is based in Melbourne and Brownfield is in Spokane — and a promising publishing deal, two more in the series are already on the way. The creative pair's second book, Quinnelope and the Mystery of the Missing Moon, is set to hit shelves in June 2024.
"We really do have such different strengths, and I'm grateful for that," Brownfield says. "There's no way [this book] would've happened in a million years without Kayla."
Along their journey, Quinnelope and friends must bravely make their way through a slew of obstacles. This includes traversing past an active (cookie dough) volcano, defeating a few rotten eggs by cracking them up with jokes, and getting past the Frosting Fiend, who tries to distract the adventurers with his "original" artworks that seem suspiciously familiar to some classic paintings.
And of course, there's a sweet ending where Quinnelope rescues the Cookie King, befriends the Cake Criminal and creates a new mouthwatering dessert — the "coocakes."
Each page of this whimsical story is packed with quirky energy and a light-hearted humor that's appropriate for all audiences. And if you ask Coombs, that's because of Brownfield's eccentric mind.
"Brownfield is a gold mine of ideas, they have like 10 really good ideas a day," Coombs says. "Honestly, the hard part for us is figuring out which one to work on first because so many of them are so good."
"I mean, I certainly feel like a second grader walking around the world and imagining weird, strange things every day," Brownfield chuckles.
To some, this may be just a silly kids story to file along with similar titles such as Captain Underpants or Diary of a Wimpy Kid, but to others, like Brownfield's daughter, this is something special — something entirely new.
Their daughter is one of the millions of Americans who live with dyslexia, a learning disorder that makes reading more complicated.
"School has been so difficult for [my daughter], and it really struck me just how much we had to advocate for her to even make learning accessible," Brownfield says. Because of this, they say their daughter prefers to read books with more visual elements.
However, many of the age-appropriate graphic novels on the shelves right now are tailored to young boys, Brownfield says.
"Those books are fun and my sons like them, but she's not really into them," Brownfield explains. "So one night I came up with this little kernel of an idea and sent it to Kayla as a joke."
Thus the cookie-eating pink blob queen Quinnelope was born.
In addition to creating a visually based story that might appeal to a wider audience, the book was written in a dyslexia-friendly font to make it more accessible. These fonts often take steps to make reading it easier, for example, capital I's need to have the little slashes on top and bottom so folks don't mistake it for a lowercase L.
But when the pair began looking into their options, they couldn't find a font they liked.
"When we pulled up some of these fonts, they were almost inaccessible to people without dyslexia," Brownfield says. "They were so strangely shaped — and that's wonderful for folks with dyslexia — but we needed something that was going to be accessible for everybody."
So, Coombs created a brand new font using her own handwriting, which she says took about three iterations before it was ready to be used. The randomness and organic nature of the font makes it more accessible to folks with dyslexia, while still being readable by all audiences, she says.
According to Coombs, another creative project is already using the font she created.
"I mean, almost every time I talk to folks about it I just tear up," Brownfield says. "I don't have dyslexia, but I can only imagine what it's like, so it just feels incredible that we can make it even a little bit [easier] for them." ♦
