This collection of graphic novels for young readers will take you on journeys around the world and beyond it. Curated by Willie Nettles.
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Amelia Erroway: Castaway Commander by Betsy Peterschmidt
Being lost can sometimes be the first step toward finding your destiny.
A Junior Library Guild Selection
Forbidden to become a pilot by her overprotective father, Amelia Erroway yearns to command her own airship. To prove her worth, she sets off alone on her father’s prized craft. But disaster strikes: A fierce storm crashes her ship in uncharted lands and Amelia, now a castaway, must use her wits to survive. With the help of Rastor and Fynley, brothers who live deep in the Juniper rainforest, Amelia is determined to repair her airship and, with her newly formed crew, fly home.
When a family takes a boating trip, the last thing they expect is to be shipwrecked on an island-especially an island with weird, otherworldly plants and animals. Now, what started out as a bad vacation turns into a terrible one as Lyle, Karen, and their two kids, Janie and Reese, must find a way off the island while they dodge its strange and dangerous inhabitants. Is the island alive? Is it from another world? In this rousing, Swiss-Family-Robinson tale with a twist, the answers to these questions could save them… or spell their doom.
Get ready for a thrilling journey in Compass South, a New York Times– bestselling middle-grade graphic novel full of pirates and adventure, from the same team who created the Eisner Award-winner Salt Magic.
It’s 1860 in New York City. When 12-year-old twins Alexander and Cleopatra’s father disappears, they join the Black Hook Gang and are caught by the police pulling off a heist. They agree to reveal the identity of the gang in exchange for tickets to New Orleans. But once there, Alex is shanghaied to work on a ship that is heading for San Francisco via Cape Horn. Cleo stows away on a steamer to New Granada where she hopes to catch a train to San Francisco to find her brother. Neither Alexander nor Cleo realizes the real danger they are in-they are being followed by pirates who think they hold the key to treasure. How they outwit the pirates and find each other makes for a fast-paced, breathtaking adventure.
Delilah Dirk and the Turkish Lieutenant by Tony Cliff
Lovable ne’er-do-well Delilah Dirk is an Indiana Jones for the 19th century. She has traveled to Japan, Indonesia, France, and even the New World. Using the skills she’s picked up on the way, Delilah’s adventures continue as she plots to rob a rich and corrupt Sultan in Constantinople. With the aid of her flying boat and her newfound friend, Selim, she evades the Sultan’s guards, leaves angry pirates in the dust, and fights her way through the countryside. For Delilah, one adventure leads to the next in this thrilling and funny installment in her exciting life.
The volcano is erupting, and brothers Sumo and Duffy are trapped inside a deep lava tube–almost certain death. How did they get here? A vacation “hike” turned out to be a cutthroat search for their missing family fortune.
In a wildly dangerous twist of events, the boys try to escape–but rivers of lava are blocking their exit! The remote island of Kocalaha is threatening to explode at any minute. Will the boys survive?
Don Wood’s rip-roaring adventure keeps readers hooked and turning the pages in this cinematic graphic novel that garnered outstanding critical acclaim. As one reviewer wrote about this book, “the American Library Association will either have to start handing Caldecott Medals over to comic books or create an entirely new award for them.”
Into the Volcano is a roller coaster read for all ages, by an internationally acclaimed artist who has created scores of bestselling picture books, published in more than twenty languages around the globe.
Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky by Robert Venditti
The best-selling and awarding-winning novel about a Black boy who helps folk heroes and gods through storytelling is now a dynamic graphic novel!
Seventh grader Tristan Strong feels anything but strong ever since he failed to save his best friend when they were in a bus accident together. All he has left of Eddie is the journal his friend wrote stories in. Tristan is dreading the month he’s going to spend on his grandparents’ farm in Alabama, where he’s being sent to heal from the tragedy.
But on his first night there, a sticky creature shows up in his bedroom and steals Eddie’s notebook. Tristan chases after it–is that a doll?–and a tug-of-war ensues between them underneath a Bottle Tree. In a last attempt to wrestle the journal out of the creature’s hands, Tristan punches the tree, accidentally ripping open a chasm into the MidPass, a volatile place with a burning sea, haunted bone ships, and iron monsters that are hunting the inhabitants of this world.
Tristan finds himself in the middle of a battle that has left Black American folk heroes John Henry and Brer Rabbit exhausted. In order to get back home, Tristan and these new allies will need to entice the god Anansi, the Weaver, to come out of hiding and seal the hole in the sky. But bartering with the trickster Anansi always comes at a price.
This Was Our Pact by Ryan Andrews
It’s the night of the annual Autumn Equinox Festival, when the town gathers to float paper lanterns down the river. Legend has it that after drifting out of sight, they’ll soar off to the Milky Way and turn into brilliant stars, but could that actually be true? This year, Ben and his classmates are determined to find out where those lanterns really go, and to ensure success in their mission, they’ve made a pact with two simple rules: No one turns for home. No one looks back.
The plan is to follow the river on their bikes for as long as it takes to learn the truth, but it isn’t long before the pact is broken by all except for Ben and (much to Ben’s disappointment) Nathaniel, the one kid who just doesn’t seem to fit in.
Together, Nathaniel and Ben will travel farther than anyone has ever gone, down a winding road full of magic, wonder, and unexpected friendship*.
*And a talking bear.
Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson
Retells, in comic book format, Robert Louis Stevenson’s tale of an innkeeper’s son who finds a treasure map that leads him to a pirate’s fortune. This seafaring adventure is brought to graphic life by scrivener Roy Thomas and new penciling star, Mario Gully.
This classic tale has thrilled generations of readers, taken in by the allure of the sea as only Stevenson could present it.
Shelf Analysis 