Cody Decoder, phonics series for Pioneer Valley Books (2026, author + illustrator)
 

A budding middle school sleuth notices that words are disappearing from posters around her school, even from the mouth of her teacher as she tries to give a lesson! Cody's investigation leads her to an abandoned dictionary warehouse where an alien slimeball called a Logo Burp is busy devouring our words!

 

Cody proves to the Logo Burp that language still matters and receives two parting gifts from the slimeball: the ability to converse with animals like her cat, Query, who reveals he's the reincarnation of a 19th-century dandy; and, equally startling, Cody's ponytail is turned into a question mark that remains perpetually sticking straight up, a reminder from the Logo Burp to never stop asking questions.