Coming in Fall, 2025 … PRE-ORDER ON KICKSTARTER TODAY!
Long before social media, cell phones, the Internet, expansive gender definitions, or even cable TV, a 3rd grade class collaborated on a paper city. Conceived as a way to make learning fun, the project quickly devolved into an exercise in accusations, subterfuge, and childish vandalism.
Narrated by 8-year-old Annie, the best girl artist in class, Panther City is both a comedy of manners for adults and an unvarnished recollection of a bygone moment in the pre-Bicentennial American Midwest, as observed by Ayun Halliday, Chief Primatologist of The East Village Inky zine and the author of No Touch Monkey! And Other Travel Lessons Learned Too Late.
Fortified with 8 essential vitamins, a Teacher’s Edition and illustrations by an actual 8-year-old!
Author!
Praise for PANTHER CITY:
Illustrator!
Ayun Halliday takes us into the minds of a dreamy 3rd grader and a teacher whose idealism is rapidly fading. A story of trying to do something good even when the odds are stacked against you.
- Jeff Hiller, Somebody Somewhere, author of Actress of a Certain Age
Hilarious, heartbreaking, and utterly human, PANTHER CITY is vintage Ayun at her finest. Beneath the vivid 70s details, Halliday serves up sharp social commentary about power, privilege, and the ways we learn to navigate an unfair world.
- Ariel Gore, author of Rehearsals for Dying
The illustrations are as gloriously unhinged as the text, bringing home the truth that even the smallest of dramas can rise to the level of Greek tragedy
- Emily Flake author of Joke in a Box: How to Write and Draw Jokes
An utterly charming and clever read. The illustrations were adorable and made me LOL. Wonderful!
- MariNaomi, author and illustrator of Losing the Girl
