Squeak Chatter Bark: An Eco-Mystery Paperback by Ali Fitzgerald

Product Details

• Publisher: Fantagraphics (2025-04-01)
• Language: English
• Paperback: 248 pages
• ISBN-13: 9798875000584
• Item Weight: 697.41 grams
• Dimensions: 23.44 x 17.17 x 1.73 cm

In this charming middle-grade graphic novel, 11-year-old Hazel McCrimlisk’s scientist parents are kidnapped inside the ecosphere they live and work in. Can Hazel and her friends find them in time?

Hazel and her parents live an idyllic life in a treehouse in the PAW (Perfect Animal Worlds) Biosphere among a series of ecologically controlled environments populated by genetically created and enhanced animals and flora. As scientists working for PAW, together with founder Dr. Henry Nimick, the McCrimlisk’s mission is to create a world that will usher in an era of “good evolution”, populated with animals and plants that can transform pollution and other environmental hazards to make the region clean and habitable. But one foggy night, Hazel’s parents are suddenly kidnapped. With the help of her animal friends Chimi (a multilingual toucan), Nina (a pet-sized elephant who exhibits super-strength), and her human friend (comics lover and mythology expert) Alex, Hazel tracks clues throughout the various biodomes and climates uncovering what happened to her parents and leading her to... a monster?!?

Author Ali Fitzgerald charmingly wrote, drew, lettered, and colored this book featuring an imaginative setting rich with detail and an expressive brush-pen style with a good sense of personality and motion. Her colorful, anthropomorphic characters are bright and funny sleuths alongside Hazel as they follow the clues together. Filled with puns and hijinks, readers will delight in this mystery with an ecological message.

About the Author

Ali Fitzgerald is a comic columnist for The New Yorker, where she also contributes writing and visual essays. Her popular webcomic series, Hungover Bear and Friends, was published by McSweeney’s and she has contributed regular comics to The New York Times and New York Magazine. Her graphic nonfiction book, Drawn to Berlin: Comic Workshops in Refugee Shelters and Other Stories from a New Europe (Fantagraphics, 2018) was named one of the best comics of 2018 by Vulture and won the Independent Publisher’s award for best graphic book of 2019. Fitzgerald’s artwork has been exhibited internationally and she has shown in institutions like the Haus am Luetzowplatz, The Austin Museum of Art, the Center for Book Arts, and SP2 Gallery. She often works with museums and urban spaces on comics and public art projects. In late 2021, she created a series of murals for the Berlin Subway and in 2023, she was nominated for the Cartoonist Studio Prize for “Iconic,” a comic commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art. Born in Oakland, CA, she graduated with an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin, and lives in Paris.