Anne of Green Gables: A Graphic Novel


Mariah Marsden - 2017
    Baking disasters. Puffed sleeves. Explore the violet vales and glorious green of Avonlea in this spirited adaptation.The magic of L.M. Montgomery’s treasured classic is reimagined in a whimsically-illustrated graphic novel adaptation perfect for newcomers and kindred spirits alike. When Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert decide to adopt an orphan who can help manage their family farm, they have no idea what delightful trouble awaits them. With flame-red hair and an unstoppable imagination, 11-year-old Anne Shirley takes Green Gables by storm.Anne’s misadventures bring a little romance to the lives of everyone she meets: her bosom friend, Diana Barry; the town gossip, Mrs. Lynde; and that infuriating tease, Gilbert Blythe. From triumphs and thrills to the depths of despair, Anne turns each everyday moment into something extraordinary.The spirit of Anne is alive and well in Mariah Marsden's crisp adaptation, and it's a thrill to watch as the beloved orphan rushes headlong through Brenna Thummler's heavenly landscapes. Together Marsden and Thummler conjure all the magic and beauty of Green Gables. Like Anne herself, you won't want to leave. — Brian Selznick, author/illustrator of “The Invention of Hugo Cabret” and “The Marvels”

Space Dumplins: A Graphic Novel


Craig Thompson - 2015
    So when her father goes missing while on a hazardous job, she can't just sit around and do nothing. To get him back, Violet throws caution to the stars and sets out with a group of misfit friends on a quest to find him. But space is vast and dangerous, and she soon discovers that her dad is in big, BIG trouble. With her father's life on the line, nothing is going to stop Violet from trying to rescue him and keep her family together.Visionary graphic novel creator Craig Thompson brings all of his wit, warmth, and humor to create a brilliantly drawn story for all ages. Set in a distant yet familiar future, Space Dumplins weaves themes of family, friendship, and loyalty into a grand space adventure filled with quirky aliens, awesome spaceships, and sharp commentary on our environmentally challenged world.

The Heir


Philippe Francq - 1990
    Thousands of miles away, one of the richest men in the world will change Largo's destiny. This man, Nerio Winch, wants to find an heir to his empire and adopts Largo, offering him the best education. When his adoptive father disappears under dramatic circumstances, Largo inherits the W Group, the biggest conglomerate of multinational enterprises ever possessed and managed by a single man. From now on, he will be worth $10 billion. Which is not to everybody's taste, as he is about to find out.

Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid: Rowley Jefferson's Journal


Jeff Kinney - 2019
    . . and counting. But it's finally time for readers to hear directly from Rowley in a journal of his own. In Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid, Rowley writes about his experiences and agrees to play the role of biographer for Greg along the way. (After all, one day Greg will be rich and famous, and everyone will want to know his life's story.) But Rowley is a poor choice for the job, and his "biography" of Greg is a hilarious mess. Diary of an Awesome Friendly Kid: Rowley Jefferson's Journal offers readers a new way to look at the Wimpy world--one fans won't want to miss!

Everything is Complicated


Jean-Jacques Sempé - 1963
    Everything is Complicated, the second collection of Sempé’s cartoons, features some of his favourite subjects, such as hapless tourists, pipe-smoking novelists and unruly schoolchildren, as well as people who choose to express their innermost feelings through the medium of the protest sign. These inimitable drawings and watercolours, accompanied by perfectly judged deadpan captions, are fresh, engaging and funny, and will be appreciated by cartoon connoisseurs and Francophiles as well as the general public.

The Measly Middle Ages


Terry Deary - 1996
    "The Measly Middle Ages" portrays life as it really was in the days when knights were bold and the peasants were revolting.

Star Wars: Jedi Academy


Jeffrey Brown - 2013
    The setting? A galaxy far, far away...Roan's one dream is to leave home and attend Pilot Academy like his older brother, father, and grandfather. But just as Roan is mysteriously denied entrance to Pilot School, he is invited to attend Jedi Academy--a school that he didn't apply to and only recruits children when they are just a few years old. That is, until now...This inventive novel follows Roan's first year at Jedi Academy where, under the tutelage of Master Yoda, he learns that he possesses more strength and potential than he could have ever dreamed. Oh, and he learns other important things too--like how to make a baking soda volcano, fence with a lightsaber, slow dance with a girl, and lift boulders with the Force.

The Savage


David Almond - 2008
    At least it is for Blue, since his dad died and Hopper, the town bully, started knocking him and the other kids around. But Blue's story has a life of its own -- weird and wild and magic and dark -- and when the savage pays a nighttime visit to Hopper, Blue starts to wonder where he ends and his creation begins.

Study Hall of Justice


Derek Fridolfs - 2016
    There's a gang of jokers roaming the halls, a muscle-headed kid named Bane wants to beat you up, and your guidance counselor Hugo Strange seems really, well, strange.This inventive novel follows young Bruce Wayne and his friends Clark (Superman) and Diana (Wonder Woman) as they start a Junior Detective Agency to investigate their teachers and find out what's going on behind closed doors at Ducard Academy, all before recess.This all-new story presents a twist on the idea of junior sleuths, using comics, journal entries, and doodles to reimagine Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman as three students in the same school. They'll try their best to solve their case, but just because you're faster than a speeding bullet or more powerful than a locomotive, it doesn't mean you get to stay up past eleven.

Secret Letters from 0 to 10


Susie Morgenstern - 1996
    Each day is the same: he comes home right after school, eats a healthy snack, and does his homework. Enter Victoria, the new girl in class. Victoria instantly falls in love with Ernest, and bulldozes her way into his life. Much to Ernest's surprise, he likes it. Bit by bit, color seeps into Ernest's humdrum existence--and he begins to realize that life can hold an endless variety of love, friendship, adventure, and change.

The Little Prince


Antoine de Saint-Exupéry - 1943
    "Please," asks the stranger, "draw me a sheep." And the pilot realizes that when life's events are too difficult to understand, there is no choice but to succumb to their mysteries. He pulls out pencil and paper... And thus begins this wise and enchanting fable that, in teaching the secret of what is really important in life, has changed forever the world for its readers.Few stories are as widely read and as universally cherished by children and adults alike as The Little Prince, presented here in a stunning new translation with carefully restored artwork. The definitive edition of a worldwide classic, it will capture the hearts of readers of all ages.

Mr. Bliss


J.R.R. Tolkien - 1982
    Bliss's first outing in his new motor-car, shared with several friends, bears, dogs, and a donkey, though not the Girabbit, proves to be unconventional though not inexpensive.

Dungeon: Zenith - Vol. 2: The Barbarian Princess


Joann Sfar - 2000
    Herbert’s fictitious Princess in distress to lure more hapless warriors to the Dungeon turns out to be all too real and quite a handful!

The Lost Thing


Shaun Tan - 2000
    The thing is a large, freakish creature but no-one else really notices it--it's simply not a part of their familiar day-to-day reality. So the kid takes it upon himself to try to find where the lost thing belongs...The Lost Thing is a gently humorous story that will be read and enjoyed by a wide range of ages. While the narrative is full of typical thoughts of an observant and caring young person, the illustrations provide a surreal and thought-provoking backdrop for this 'lost dog story' with a definite twist. The Lost Thing is the first book that Shaun Tan both wrote and illustrated.

In Search of Lost Time: Swann's Way: A Graphic Novel


Stéphane Heuet - 2013
    "For those who began to write at the end of the twenties or the beginning of the thirties, there were two great inescapable influences: Proust and Freud, who are mutually complementary." With its sweeping digressions into the past and reflections on the nature of memory, Proust's oceanic novel In Search of Lost Time looms over twentieth-century literature as one of the greatest, yet most endlessly challenging literary experiences. Influencing writers like Virginia Woolf and James Joyce, and even anticipating Albert Einstein in its philosophical explorations of space and time, In Search of Lost Time is a monumental achievement and a virtual rite of passage for any serious lover of literature.Now, in what renowned translator Arthur Goldhammer says might be "likened to a piano reduction of an orchestral score," the French illustrator Stéphane Heuet re-presents Proust in graphic form for anyone who has always dreamed of reading him but was put off by the sheer magnitude of the undertaking. This graphic adaptation reveals the fundamental architecture of Proust’s work while displaying a remarkable fidelity to his language as well as the novel's themes of time, art, and the elusiveness of memory. As Goldhammer writes in his introduction, the compression required by this kind of adaptation As Goldhammer writes in his introduction, "the reader new to Proust must attend closely, even in this compressed rendering, to the novel's circling rhythms and abrupt cross-cuts between different places and times. But this necessary attentiveness is abetted and facilitated by the compactness of the graphic format.”In this first volume, Swann's Way, the narrator Marcel, an aspiring writer, recalls his childhood when—in a now immortal moment in literature—the taste of a madeleine cake dipped in tea unleashes a torrent of memories about his family’s country home in the town of Combray. Here, Heuet and Goldhammer use Proust's own famously rich and labyrinthine sentences and discerning observations to render Combray like never before. From the water lillies of the Vivonne to the steeple and stained glass of the town church, Proust's language provides the blueprint for Heuet's illustrations. Heuet and Goldhammer also capture Proust's humor, wit, and sometimes scathing portrayals of Combray's many memorable inhabitants, like the lovelorn Charles Swann and the object of his affection and torment, Odette de Crécy; Swann's daughter Gilberte; local aristocrat the Duchesse de Guermantes; the narrator's uncle Adolphe; and the hypochondriac Aunt Léonie.Including a Proust family tree, a glossary of terms, and a map of Paris, this graphic adaptation is a surprising and useful companion piece to Proust’s masterpiece for both the initiated and those seeking an introduction.