Cucumber Quest, The Doughnut Kingdom-as sweet as its source

Cucumber Quest  The Doughnut Kingdom is as sweet and pleasant as its name implies. Think of Candy Land come to life, except even more all age friendly, now add in some fable elements like monsters, princesses drawn in soft, muted colors and you have an idea of Cucumber Quest. The world is inhabited by anthropomorphic bunny rabbits. Cucumber is the main character, a shy kid who just wants to go to school and his younger sister who is much more intent on battling demons, swordplay and epic quests.

It’s possible to view Cucumber Quest as an all ages graphic novel with fable inspirations and a side of Middle Earth. Cucumber is sent a letter from his father who is in prison. It’s Cucumber’s destiny to protect the Disaster Stones from the evil Queen Cordelia. He’s also tasked with retrieving The Dream Sword which is the only way to defeat the Knightmare Knight, a massive black knight who casually resembles one of the Knights Who Say Ni from Monty Python.

The Cucumber Quest is kawaii with enough dangerous escapades, monsters and story to engage kids ages 3 and up. Of course, kids that young will need to have the graphic novel read to them. However, that’s the added attraction of this graphic novel. Because its text is so simple and has lots of illustrations to accompany them; it is good for parents to read it to pre-K kids and up.

When you read graphic novels that are intended for middle to elementary school kids they have much more text. Kids will look at the pictures and want you to read it faster or skip parts of the story. Reading those types of graphic novels is more of a solitary thing. The balance of conversation between the characters moves is tandem with the art, which is to say that it can be read at the same pace that young (see: impatient) readers will want it to.

Cucumber Quest ends on a bit of a cliffhanger. That is to be expected since the characters have been around since 2011 and the second graphic novel is coming out in the first quarter of 2018. Our 8 year old quickly read Cucumber Quest and asked when the next one was coming out. I was a little surprised that he took so quickly to the graphic novel because he hadn’t previously wanted to read stories with a fable back story. It is a fable back story, but it’s peppered with modern phrases, is quickly paced and will equally entertain boys or girls.

Cucumber Quest is written by Gigi D.G. and published by :01 First Second.