We hope this selection of graphic novels serves to educate and encourage a dialogue on topics of social justice.
Go With the Flow by Lily Williams
When four best friends notice that the boys have brand-new football uniforms and equipment while the girls bathrooms are still shamefully bereft of feminine hygiene products, they decide to take matters into their own hands. They petition, they write letters, they make NOISE, and eventually maybe even go a little too far. This hilarious, poignant, and fresh coming-of-age story chronicles a year in the life of these four young women, from friends, to fights, to first crushes as they navigate the treacherous landscape of freshman year and learn that some fights are worth all the trouble.
Available Formats: Book
Long Way Down: The Graphic Novel by Jason Reynolds
Will’s brother got shot in the streets of their neighborhood. After his death, Will finds his brother’s gun and sets out to find the guy responsible. This book takes place in a matter of sixty seconds as Will makes his way down his apartment elevator. At each floor the elevator stops and a ghost gets on to tell their story. Jason Reynolds’s Newbery Honor, Printz Honor, and Coretta Scott King Honor-winning novel Long Way Down is now a gripping, galvanizing graphic novel, with haunting artwork by Danica Novgorodoff.
Available Formats: Book, Ebook (Overdrive by Media On Demand)
I am Alfonso Jones by Tony Medina
Alfonso Jones can’t wait to play the role of Hamlet in his school’s hip-hop rendition of the classic Shakespearean play. He also wants to let his best friend, Danetta, know how he really feels about her. But as he is buying his first suit, an off-duty police officer mistakes a clothes hanger for a gun, and he shoots Alfonso. When Alfonso wakes up in the afterlife, he’s on a ghost train guided by well-known victims of police shootings, who teach him what he needs to know about this subterranean spiritual world. Meanwhile, Alfonso’s family and friends struggle with their grief and seek justice for Alfonso in the streets. As they confront their new realities, both Alfonso and those he loves realize the work that lies ahead in the fight for justice.
Available Format: Book
If I Go Missing by Brianna Jonnie
Combining graphic fiction and non-fiction, this young adult graphic novel serves as a window into one of the unique dangers of being an Indigenous teen in Canada today. The text of the book is derived from excerpts of a letter written to the Winnipeg Chief of Police by fourteen-year-old Brianna Jonnie — a letter that went viral and was also the basis of a documentary film. In her letter, Jonnie calls out the authorities for neglecting to immediately investigate missing Indigenous people and urges them to “not treat me as the Indigenous person I am proud to be,” if she were to be reported missing. Through Neal Shannacappo’s illustrations he imagines a situation in which a young Indigenous woman does disappear, portraying the reaction of her community, her friends, the police and media.
Available Format: Book
Surviving the City by Tasha Spillett-Sumner
Miikwan and Dez are best friends. Miikwan is Anishinaabe; Dez is Inninew. Together, the teens navigate the challenges of growing up in an urban landscape–they’re so close, they even completed their Berry Fast together. However, when Dez’s grandmother becomes too sick, Dez is told she can’t stay with her anymore. With the threat of a group home looming, Dez can’t bring herself to go home and disappears. Miikwan is devastated, and the wound of her missing mother resurfaces. Will Dez’s community find her before it’s too late? Will Miikwan be able to cope if they don’t?
Available Formats: Book, Ebook (Hoopla), Ebook (Overdrive by Media On Demand)
Banned Book Club by Kim Hyun Sook
When Kim Hyun Sook started college in 1983 she was ready for her world to open up, but literature class would prove to be just the start of a massive turning point. This was during South Korea’s Fifth Republic, a military regime that entrenched its power through censorship, torture, and the murder of protesters. In this charged political climate Hyun Sook sought refuge in the comfort of books. When the handsome young editor of the school newspaper invited her to his reading group, she expected to pop into the cafeteria to talk about Moby Dick, Hamlet, and The Scarlet Letter. Instead she found herself hiding in a basement as the youngest member of an underground banned book club. And as Hyun Sook soon discovered, in a totalitarian regime, the delights of discovering great works of illicit literature are quickly overshadowed by fear and violence as the walls close in.
Available Format: Book
The Librarian of Auschwitz by Salva Rubio
Fourteen-year-old Dita is one of the many imprisoned by the Nazis at Auschwitz. Taken, along with her mother and father, from the Terezín ghetto in Prague, Dita is adjusting to the constant terror that is life in the camp. When Jewish leader Freddy Hirsch asks Dita to take charge of the eight precious volumes the prisoners have managed to sneak past the guards, she agrees. And so Dita becomes the librarian of Auschwitz. Out of one of the darkest chapters of human history comes this extraordinary story of courage and hope.
Available Format: Book
Numb to This: Memoir of a Mass Shooting by Kindra Neely
Kindra Neely never expected it to happen to her. No one does. Sure, she’d sometimes been close to gun violence. But now she lived in Oregon, where she spent her time swimming in rivers with friends or attending classes at the bucolic Umpqua Community College. And then, one day, it happened: a mass shooting shattered her college campus. Over the span of a few minutes, on October 1, 2015, eight students and a professor lost their lives. And suddenly, Kindra became a survivor. This empathetic and ultimately hopeful graphic memoir recounts Kindra’s journey forward from those few minutes that changed everything. Kindra learned that–for her–the path toward hope wound through art, helping others, and sharing her story.
Available Format: Book
They Called Us Enemy by George Takei
In 1942, at the order of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, every person of Japanese descent on the west coast was rounded up and shipped to one of ten “relocation centers,” hundreds or thousands of miles from home, where they would be held for years under armed guard. They Called Us Enemy is Takei’s firsthand account of those years behind barbed wire, the terrors and small joys of childhood in the shadow of legalized racism, his mother’s hard choices, his father’s tested faith in democracy, and the way those experiences planted the seeds for his astonishing future. What does it mean to be American? Who gets to decide? When the world is against you, what can one person do? To answer these questions, George Takei joins cowriters Justin Eisinger & Steven Scott and artist Harmony Becker for the journey of a lifetime.
Available Formats: Book, Ebook (Hoopla), Ebook (Overdrive by Media On Demand)
Displacement by Kiku Hughes
Kiku is on vacation in San Francisco when suddenly she finds herself displaced to the 1940s Japanese-American internment camp that her late grandmother, Ernestina, was forcibly relocated to during World War II. These displacements keep occurring until Kiku finds herself “stuck” back in time. Living alongside her young grandmother and other Japanese-American citizens in internment camps, Kiku gets the education she never received in history class. She witnesses the lives of Japanese-Americans who were denied their civil liberties and suffered greatly, but managed to cultivate community and commit acts of resistance in order to survive.
Available Format: Book
Borders by Thomas King
Borders is a masterfully told story of a boy and his mother whose road trip from Alberta to Salt Lake City is thwarted at the border when they identify their citizenship as Blackfoot. Refusing to identify as either American or Canadian first bars their entry into the US, and then their return into Canada. In the limbo between countries, they find power in their connection to their identity and to each other. This much-anthologized story has been adapted into a gripping graphic novel by award-winning artist Natasha Donovan.
Available Formats: Book, Ebook (Overdrive by Media On Demand)
The Unwanted: Stories of the Syrian Refugees by Don Brown
Starting in 2011, refugees flood out of war-torn Syria in Exodus-like proportions. The surprising flood of victims overwhelms neighboring countries, and chaos follows. Resentment in host nations heightens as disruption and the cost of aid grows. By 2017, many want to turn their backs on the victims. The refugees are the unwanted. Don Brown depicts moments of both heartbreaking horror and hope in the ongoing Syrian refugee crisis. Shining a light on the stories of the survivors, The Unwanted is a testament to the courage and resilience of the refugees and a call to action for all those who read.
Available Formats: Book, Ebook (Overdrive by Media On Demand)
Escape from Syria by Samya Kullab
When the family home in Aleppo is destroyed by a government-led bomb strike, Walid has no choice but to take his wife and children and flee their war-torn and much loved homeland. They struggle to survive in the wretched refugee camps of Lebanon, and when Youssef becomes very ill as a result of the poor hygienic conditions, his father is forced to take great personal risk to save his family. Walid’s daughter, the young Amina, a whip-smart grade-A student, tells the story. As she witnesses firsthand the harsh realities that her family must endure if they are to survive — swindling smugglers, treacherous ocean crossings, and jihadist militias — she is forced to grow up very quickly in order to help her parents and brother.
Available Format: Book
Victory. Stand!: Raising My Fist for Justice by Tommie Smith
On October 16, 1968, during the medal ceremony at the Mexico City Olympics, Tommie Smith, the gold medal winner in the 200-meter sprint, and John Carlos, the bronze medal winner, stood on the podium in black socks and raised their black-gloved fists to protest racial injustice inflicted upon African Americans. Both men were forced to leave the Olympics, received death threats, and faced ostracism and continuing economic hardships. In his first-ever memoir for young readers, Tommie Smith looks back on his childhood growing up in rural Texas through to his stellar athletic career, culminating in his historic victory and Olympic podium protest.
Available Formats: Book, Ebook (Overdrive by Media On Demand)
Seen. Rachel Carson by Birdie Willis
Meet Rachel Carson, the woman who changed the way America fought against the environmental crisis through her bestselling books, ultimately spurring the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Birdie Willis & Rii Abrego present the true story of the marine biologist whose dedication, compassion and integrity gave a new generation of Americans hope for a brighter tomorrow.
Available Format: Book
Seen. Edmonia Lewis by Jasmine Walls
Meet Edmonia Lewis, the woman who changed America during the Civil War by becoming the first sculptor of African-American and Native American heritage to earn international acclaim. Jasmine Walls & Bex Glendining present the true story of courage, determination and perseverance through one of America’s most violent eras to create true beauty that still reverberates today.
Available Format: Book
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