Saturday Morning Cartoons- The Hidden Dominion of Geordie James

Dawson, Mike. The Hidden Dominion of Geordie James

May 19, 2026 by Union Square Kids

Copy provided by the publisher

**Spoilers**

Geordie is failing his science class, so his teacher, Mr. Fritts, puts him in a group for science fair that includes four other students who are struggling. Anthony is mean to Geordie, Samesh is the younger brother of one of his sister Maisie's friends, Alex is having trouble balancing all of her classes, and Taylor is willing to have the group meet at her house to discuss the project. Geordie has a lot of social anxiety, and would rather spend his time playing Dominion, a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game on his tablet, building his Buttonwood Farms construction that he tries hard to hide from Marauders in the game who just destroy things. His father, who has been working from home, doesn't like him to be on the device, but doesn't take it away. When a pig escapes from a local farm, Geordie becomes obsessed with it because of a connection to his past. The science fair group decides that their theme should be humans and the environment, but each kid wants to do something different. Geordie wants to do something with animals, but he has trouble expressing himself, and the others shoot down his ideas. He does have Samesh over to his house, and the two play Dominion together, although Samesh is one of the dreaded Marauders. Eventually, Geordie's father grounds him from playing and makes him spend time outside, but Georgie sneaks the device outside. He finds an abandoned club house where he can get WiFi, and spends his time playing games. There is a lot of tension in the group, tension in Geordie's home life, and even tension in the game. It all becomes too much when the town announces that it will be renovating the outside space where the club house is. Geordie goes out during a storm and is missing for a while, but when he is found the next day he is able to talk to his father and come to terms with some of his issues.

The biggest issue is that Geordie's mother died of COVID, and his connection to the pig is based on the fact that right before her death, the two had visited a farm. There had been a pig there that interested him, but the pig was sent to be slaughtered. The father transitioned to working at home, and doesn't seem to want to enforce any rules with Geordie: I couldn't believe he didn't lock up or hide the tablet, since it was clearly causing Geordie's problems in school, or that Geordie wasn't in some kind of grief counseling. This all comes together at the end and things are happier. The father even builds a clubhouse in the yard, since he is an architect.

The illustration style is interesting, and this is on trend with current thoughts on social emotional learning and processing grief. I loved Dawson's THE FIFTH QUARTER, which is super popular with my students because it is about basketball. This is more of a literary graphic novel that would be interesting for class discussions, but I would love to see more graphic novels that are humorous or that cover different sports topics.