Molly Knox Ostertag (text) & Xanthe Bouma (illustrator), Dungeons & Dragons, Dungeon Club: Roll Call, HarperCollins Publishers, 1st February, 2023, 208pp., RRP $12.99, ISBN 9780008531065
Jess and Olivia became best friends back in third grade through a shared love of fantasy role play. Since then, their games have evolved into a love of Dungeons and Dragons. Now they’re thirteen and starting middle school. Olivia is keen to expand her social circle and start a school D&D club but Jess would rather it remain the two of them.
Then Olivia is invited to join a group campaigning to serve as the student council. With their friendship on rocky ground, Olivia is torn between the student council and her love of D&D while Jess is struggling with bullying and trying to fit on. Jess is happiest when playing D&D and uses her D&D character, Corius, to help give her strength in the real world.
When the two friends remember their strong friendship and the foundation on which it was built, they each compromise so that their friendship circle, and their D&D club, can grow.
Dungeon Club: Roll Call is an official D&D graphic novel, released to coincide with the 2023 film, Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves. As a mother of two boys with a blooming interest in D&D who both love graphic novels, I was delighted to be given the chance to review this book. I was able to follow the D&D references and enjoyed the D&D content, the inclusion of which was unsurprising.
What was surprising was to find a beautiful coming-of-age story in a video-game licensed book. The book cleverly explores the complexities of tween friendship and cliques in the real-world in contrast with the lone fighter in the D&D game that the character play. Themes of friendship, fitting in and staying true to one’s real-world character, just as a player would stay true to their character in the game, are relevant for the age at which the complexities of D&D become accessible.
Dungeon Club: Roll Call is perfect for tweens, especially those beginning their high school journey, and most especially D&D fans.
Note: A slur of “gay” used as an insult by the school bully might offend some readers and could easily have been remedied or removed but it is a minor point in the book.
Review by Pamela Ueckerman
