Kids Comics Pitchfest 2025 Showcase

Toy Guitar

When 8th grader Hayley Fraser starts a ukulele club, she’s not sure anyone will come. New student Tasha Gordon hasn’t touched her saxophone since she caused her school to lose the jazz band competition last year. But seeing Hayley play ukulele at a school GSA meeting inspires Tasha to bring her sax to Hayley’s club. The girls start to catch feelings for each other while making music. When the other GSA club members ask them to perform at the end of the year GSA celebration, Tasha’s nervous she’ll choke up like she did with jazz band and Hayley’s afraid she’s done something wrong as Tasha starts to pull away. With help from their friends and from each other, Hayley and Tasha learn to confront their fears and be their true selves.

My Why:

A few years ago I started playing ukulele and this quirky little instrument quickly consumed my free time. I confided in a friend that I felt conflicted about devoting so much time to ukulele and neglecting my drawing and writing. My friend wisely suggested I write about a character who plays ukulele. As a middle school teacher, my thoughts naturally drifted to my students when I was creating characters. Middle school is a brutal time for most kids, especially queer kids. Although much has improved for queer kids since I was in middle school in the 90s, bullying and rejection haven’t fully disappeared. I wrote this book to acknowledge the reality of being a queer middle schooler today but also to normalize queer joy for kids.