When a hurricane exposes Soleida’s family’s secret sculpture garden, the Cuban government arrests her artist parents, forcing her to escape alone to Central America where she meets Dariel, a Cuban American boy, and together they work to protect the environment and bring attention to the imprisoned artists in Cuba.
Young Adult (ages 14-18)
Material appropriate for young adults
Spin
Sixteen year old Archne turns to weaving for solace, but when word spreads of her skill she is confronted by the goddess Athena and the two enter a weaving contest that results in transformation and redemption.
The Wicked Bargain
Sixteen year old Mar, a transmasculine Latinx pirate hiding magical abilities, must learn to use their magia to save their papá and newfound pirate familia from losing their souls to el Diablo.
If I Go Missing
If I Go Missing is a graphic novel based on a letter written by 14 year old Brianna Jonnie to the Winnipeg Police Service. This graphic novel begins with a quote from the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the right of Indigenous women and children to be free from all forms of violence and discrimination. Citing statistics and information on murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls, this is an open letter to understand how missing people are treated differently especially Indigenous women and girls by society and men and boys in particular. It is also a call on police services, media and communities to exhaust all efforts to find Indigenous girls and to do this as soon as possible because it is not about the colour of one’s skin, socio-economic status, or legal guardianship but details that humanize those who go missing that matters.
Voices Of The People
Through poems that capture the essence of each person’s life, acclaimed Native American writer Joseph Bruchac introduces readers to famous indigenous leaders from The Peacemaker in 1000 A.D. to modern day dancer Maria Tallchief and Cherokee chief Wilma Mankiller. Each poem is illustrated by a modern-day tribally enrolled artist.
Burn Down, Rise Up
When an urban legend rumored to trap people inside subway tunnels seems to be behind mysterious disappearances in the Bronx, sixteen-year-old Raquel and her friends team up to save their city–and confront a dark episode in its history in the process.
Mr. Lightbulb
In this electrifying graphic novel debut, Polish animator and cartoonist Wojtek Wawszczyk uses magical realism to tell a moving tale of finding light in a life full of darkness. Mirroring the world we live in, the protagonist of this graphic novel comes from a broken home. However, in this case, the term is quite literal. Due to freak accidents at the steelworks where his parents work, his mom is snapped, his dad is flattened. As if that wasn’t enough to deal with, one day, he suffers his own life changing experience: mistakenly swallowing a glob of molten metal gives him the strange power to radiate heat and light like a lightbulb. As he grows up, evolving from Bulb Boy to Mr. Lightbulb, he finds that his unique abilities can be a curse and a blessing; while they alienate him from others, they also allow him to shine.
All Rise: Resistance And Rebellion In South Africa
All Rise: Resistance and Rebellion in South Africa is a four-part graphic history series. Based on little-known court records, each volume consists of six stories of resistance by marginalized South Africans against colonial and apartheid governments. This first installment, which spans the “Union period” of 1910-48, was researched and written by South African historian Richard Conyngham and each illustrated by a different South African artist. The stories in All Rise combine a variety of universal issues related to justice and human rights with a refreshing narrative medium. By foregrounding “anonymous” protagonists with lesser-known histories, the book breathes new life into a terrain of written history that until now has been dominated by icons.
The Days Of Bluegrass Love
Tycho Zeling is drifting through his life. Everything in school, friends, girls, plans for the future, just kind of… happens. Like a movie he presses play on, but doesn’t direct. So Tycho decides to break away from everything. He flies to America to spend his summer as a counselor at a summer camp, for international kids. It is there that Oliver walks in, another counselor, from Norway. And it is there that Tycho feels his life stop, and begin again, finally, as his.
At The End Of Everything
A group of teens at the Hope Juvenile Treatment Center are shocked to discover their guards have abandoned them, but their joy turns to fear when they learn a catastrophic pandemic has occurred outside their walls, turning their new-found freedom into a fight for survival.