In a departure from her creepy teen chill fests, Roux kicks off a middle-grade series set in the Dungeons & Dragons game's "Forgotten Realms" universe with a tale of a sixth-grader who feels like an outsider at her boarding school for monsters. Though Zellidora was raised at the school by a pair of loving minotaur moms, she's come to realize that she's descended from the very humans who slay monsters like her schoolmates. A portrait of monster-slayer Allidora Steelstrike, sporting Zelli's same dark skin and woolly curls, in her schoolbook only further confirms her suspicions. And so the stage is set, as classmate allies ranging from a kindly, vegetarian bearowl to a fierce, if undersized, kobold sneak out with Zelli to meet her birth mother d battle to save a village from a necromancer leading a horde of skeletal minions. Experienced gamers will feel at home here, while Zelli's fretting about where she really belongs will keep newbies on a firm footing. Probert lavishes the mini-epic with dramatic, orange-highlighted ink-and-wash illustrations. A properly heroic series starter.

A series opener about students at the school that trains monsters for Dungeons & Dragons.Even though the monsters of Dungeon Academy are penalized for acts of niceness, Zelli still stands up for bullied beings. That's not the biggest way she doesn't fit in, though: The horns and tail she wears are fake; she's secretly a human who was adopted by her minotaur mothers (one a Dungeon Academy teacher). When Zelli notices that the illustration of heroic adventurer Allidora Steelstrike is the spitting image of Zelli herself, she realizes she's actually the daughter of the dungeon dwellers' mortal enemies. When a group of top students goes missing at a nearby village where a Steelstrike's been spotted, Zelli decides to take a chance to find the students-and her birth family. Accompanying her are fellow misfits: a thoughtful vegetarian owlbear named Hugo; Bauble, a book-smart mimic who prefers taking a book form to fighting; and enthusiastic kobold Snabla, who wishes he were scarier than he is. The monstrous party works together to discover the fate of the students and to find Zelli's birth mother. The themes of belonging and purpose are spelled out, but in the setting it works. There's enough humor that even those new to tabletop gaming will find plenty to chuckle at. Humans Zelli and Allidora have black curls and dark skin; Bauble uses they/them pronouns. Final illustrations not seen.Readers will clamor for the party's next dice-y adventure. (Fantasy. 8-12)