Take a cooking competition in graphic novel format and mix in zany illustrations, alien species and an intergalactic empire. Blend in a reluctant, kindhearted female heroine, top it all off with eco-, exoplanetary, and class politics, and you get The Big Tournament, the first book in the fabulous upper middle grade/YA sci-fi series, Magda: Intergalactic Chef.

Don’t forget to add several large dashes of clever humor and verbal hijinks for extra flavor, all of which keep the story from getting bogged down by its otherwise weighty themes (those eco-, exo-, and class politics).

The daughter of a humble broccoli farmer, Magda lives with her father, Farmer Plume, and grandmother on Planet Azuki in the Imperium. A talented chef, she isn’t so sure about participating in the Intergalactic Cooking Tournament. But it’s a family tradition that both her mother and grandmother competed in–with her grandmother possibly being involved in the tragic Banshi incident sixty years before the book started, the last time Planet Azuki made it to the finals.

In the end, she decides to compete. Despite cut-throat competition and a dastardly opponent who cheats, Magda prevails, winning the right to travel to represent her planet at the tournament finals. There she’ll compete to win the Nectar, a magical resource that can restore a planet’s ecosystem and do many other amazing things.

At the finals, when Magda discovers that her roommate desperately needs the Nectar to
save his planet, she decides she should let him win. That is, until she learns from journalist Minga Verde that the “hostile,” “clever and manipulative,” Imperium is “using the tournament to hide their real focus: An all-out economic war they wage behind the scenes.” Verde tells her that the Imperium is planning to extract all the clay from Azuki, in order to “decontaminate its own soil and rebuild its ecosystem.” Magda then changes her mind, telling her roomie that “it’s every man for himself.” That’s where the first book ends, with a whopper of a cliffhanger in classic comics style.

In addition to its hilariously clever illustrations and delightful recipes in the back matter (adapted to earthly ingredients), The Big Tournament is a sidesplittingly funny, no-holds-barred linguistic romp, filled with endearments such as “sugar beet” and “zucchini blossom,” plus items such as thermospatulas, drysudz, novacams, artishocks, “common utensils” such as pyro-lasers and granulators and more.

I can’t wait to read Book 2 (released October 2025) and Book 3 (due out April 2026). And I’d be willing to
wager that once you’ve read Book 1, you’ll be eager to read them, too.

The Big Tournament
Written by Nicolas Wouters
Illustrated by Mathilde Van Gheluwe
Translated from the French by Ann Marie Boulanger
ISBN: 9781459838987
April 1, 2025, Graphic Universe

Awards: Prix Albertine Jeunesse 9-11 Years, 2026 Shortlist; The Beat’s Best Kids Comics, 2025

Reviews: Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, School Library Journal

Award-winning opera singer Nanette McGuinness is the translator of over 140 books and graphic novels for children and adults from French, Italian, German and Spanish into English, including the much-loved Geronimo Stilton Graphic Novels, as well as Tiki: A Very Ruff Year (nominated for the 2023 Eisner and Harvey Awards) and Alice on the Run: One Child’s Journey Through the Rwandan Civil War (2023 GLLI YA Translated Book Prize Honor Book, 2023 Mosaic Prize winner, 2023 Excellence in Graphic Literature Finalist and 2023 Harvey Award nominee). Accolades have also gone to her translations of Up in the Blue Sky: Journey from the Earth’s Surface to Outer Space (2025 Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection), Ellie in First Position (2024 ALA Top Ten Graphic Novels for Children), Magical History Tour: Vikings and Magical History Tour: Gandhi (both 2023 Excellence in Graphic Literature Finalists), Luisa: Now and Then (2019 Stonewall Honor Book; 2020 GLLI YA Translated Honor Book; YALSA’s Great Graphic Novels for Teens in 2019) and California Dreamin’: Cass Elliot Before the Mamas & the Papas (2018 Harvey Award; YALSA’s Great Graphic Novels for Teens in 2018).