Habibi

By Craig Thompson

Place: Publisher & Year: New York: Pantheon Books, 2011

Genres: General fiction, mythic fiction

Format: Graphic novel

ISBN: 9780375424144

Audience: Adult

Number of pages: 665 (672 includes notes and author description)

Setting: A Middle-eastern desert, an unnamed village, and Wanatolia

Time period: No set time period –seems like the past, present, and future all at once

Plot summary: Dodola adopts Zam when he is three years old and she is thirteen.  Although she is young, she has already been married, witnessed the slaying of her husband, and been kidnapped to be sold into slavery.  She manages to escape from the slavers with Zam and takes him into the desert to raise him.  When Zam turns thirteen, their world is shattered when they become lost to one another.  After years of separation, their love for one another eventually brings them back together.

Level Up

By Gene Luen Yang; art by Thien Pham

Place: Publisher & Year: New York: First Second, 2011

Genres: Fantasy, contemporary fantasy, paranormal

Format: Graphic novel

ISBN: 9781596432352

Audience: Adult, young adult

Number of pages: 160

Setting: An unspecified town somewhere in the US.

Time period: Contemporary

Plot summary: When Dennis Ouyang is kicked out of college due to his horrible study habits and excessive gaming tendencies, four angels come to his rescue and get him re-enrolled.  They have arrived to help Dennis fulfill his destiny and go to medical school to become a gastroenterologist.

The Listener

By David Lester

Place: Publisher & Year: Winnipeg: Arbeiter Ring Publishing, 2011

Genres: General fiction, historical fiction

Format: Graphic novel

ISBN: 9781894037488

Audience: Adults

Number of pages: 312

Settings: Vancouver, BC, Canada, Lippe, Germany & other locations in Europe

Time periods: Contemporary and 1928-1933

Plot summary: Hitler’s rise to power is described to the main character – a sculptor named Louise – by an elderly German couple she meets while touring Europe.  Louise is travelling in Europe as a means of dealing with the guilt that she feels after a protester fell to his death outside her apartment. The German couple’s story focuses upon the spin doctoring which Hitler performed in the early 1930′s on his way to becoming Germany’s chancellor.  As Louise travels, her background and thoughts about art and politics are described. The two stories are interwoven throughout the book to reveal how Louise is able to work through both her feelings, as well as the history she learned from the couple, to complete her next sculpture. This book has as much to say about the role of art for both individuals and for society as a whole, as it does about the historical past.

The Night Bookmobile

By Audrey Niffenegger

Place: Publisher & Year: New York: Abrams, 2010

Genres: General fiction, short stories

Format: Graphic novel

Series: “The Night Bookmobile is the first installment of a much larger work, The Library, which has its origins in a dream I had as a teenager” (from the first page of “After Words” at the end of the book).

ISBN: 9780810996175

Audience: Adult

Number of pages: Unpaginated

Setting: Chicago, IL

Time period: Contemporary

Plot summary: Alexandra relates her experiences with the Night Bookmobile and how she came to work at The Library.

The Walking Dead Book One

By Robert Kirkman – creator, writer, letter, Tony Moore – penciler, inker, gray tones, Charlie Adlard – penciler, inker, Cliff Rathburn – gray tones

Place: Publisher & Year: Berkeley, CA: Image Comics, Inc., 2010

Genre: Horror

Format: Graphic novel

Series: The Walking Dead

ISBN: 9781582406190

Audience: Adult

Number of pages: Unpaginated

Setting: Kentucky, Atlanta, GA and surrounding rural areas

Time period: Contemporary

Plot summary: Small town police officer, Rick Grimes, awakens from a coma to find his world turned upside down.  Before he can even leave the hospital, he encounters his first walking dead person.  As he seeks both safety and his family, he encounters many of the walking dead as well as a few live people.

The Exile: an Outlander Graphic Novel

By Diana Gabaldon; illustrated by Hoang Nguyen

Place: Publisher & Year: New York: Del Rey, 2010

Genre: Historical fiction, fantasy, adventure, time travel fantasy, historical fantasy, romance

Format: Graphic novel

Series: Outlander Graphic Novels; 1

ISBN: 9780345505385

Audience: Adult

Number of pages: Unpaginated

Setting: Scotland

Time period: 1743

Plot summary: Young Jaime Fraser returns to Scotland after living in exile.  He is met by his godfather, Murtagh, who tries to guide Jaime back to his home – Lallybroch.  Jaime isn’t ready to head home, though.  He’s much more interested in the mysterious Sassenach that Murtagh saved from the English Captain Black Jack Randall.

Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species: A Graphic Adaptation

Story by Michael Keller, Art by Nicolle Rager Fuller

Place: Publisher & Year: Emmaus, PA: Rodale, 2009

Genre: Non- fiction, science, biography, history

Format: Graphic novel

ISBN: 9781605299488

Intended audience: Adult

Number of pages: 191

Setting: Earth

Time period: 1831 – 2006

Plot summary: This book is a graphic version of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species as well as a biography of Darwin and a history of evolutionary theory.  The book begins with Darwin having returned to England after travelling around the world on H.M.S. Beagle.  It depicts his life while working on his theory of natural selection; it also depicts his theory and the effects of it upon the current scientific understanding of life on Earth.

Kin

By Holly Black and Ted Naifeh (Illustrator)

Place: Publisher & Year: New York: Graphix, c2008, 2009

Genres: Fantasy, contemporary fantasy, dark fantasy, urban fantasy, faerie tale

Format: Graphic novel

Series: The Good Neighbors; 1

ISBN: 9780439855655

Intended audience: Young adult

Number of pages: 117

Setting: West City (USA)

Time period: Contemporary

Plot summary: When Rue Silver’s mom disappears after an argument with Rue’s father, Rue tries not to worry.  She’ll come back.  Where else does she have to go?  But after three weeks of no sight of her mom, Rue’s resolve is starting to slip.  Plus, Rue’s father hasn’t been to work since then and Rue has begun to see strange things and strange people.  When Rue’s father is taken by the police for questioning in a murder, Rue starts to question what she knows about her mother and where she came from.

Fox Bunny Funny

By Andy Hartzell (author and illustrator)

Place: Publisher & Year: Marietta, GA: Top Shelf Productions, 2007

Genre: Fantasy, animal story

Format: Graphic novel

ISBN: 9781891830976

Intended audience: Adults (but would be fine for young adults)

Number of pages: 104

Settings: Foxville, Bunnyburg, and Funniopolis

Time period: contemporary

Plot summary: In a world populated by foxes and bunnies, the foxes brutally hunt and devour the bunnies.  Everybody knows this and their places within this world – everybody except one lonely fox who doesn’t fit in.

Cancer Vixen: A True Story

By Marisa Acocella Marchetto

Place: Publisher & Year: New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006

Genres: Non-fiction, autobiography

Format: Graphic novel

ISBN: 9780676978247

Intended audience: Adult

Number of pages: 212

Setting: NYC- lower Manhattan

Time period: 2001- 2005

Plot summary: “What happens when a shoe-crazy, lipstick-obsessed, wine-swilling, pasta-slurping, fashion-fanatic, single-forever, about-to-get married big-city girl cartoonist with a fabulous life finds a lump in her breast?” (p. 1).  Marisa Acocella Marchetto tells her own true story about fighting cancer and living life to the fullest.