This heartbreaking manga, by an award-winning mangaka, examines the effects of World War 2 and post-war military colonization in Okinawa. An essential manga classic presented in English for the first time.
Okinawa is the WOW Recommends Book of the Month for April 2024.
Based on a true story of the young conservationist, Chang, who overcomes incredible odds for the sake of saving H’Non, an elephant who must be nursed back to health after years of being forced to move heavy equipment on construction sites and carry tourists to attractions all day with no breaks. A bond develops between Chang and H’Non as she nurses the elephant back to health and she decides to try and return H’Non back to her natural habitat.
Sixteen-year-old Raquel is living in a small town in Portugal, where she must learn to navigate the angst that often comes with being a teenager: her parent’s are divorced, her mother is always working and she doesn’t like her father’s new wife. After being suspended for cursing at a school aide, Raquel meets Pardalita, a gifted artist and senior at her school. As the two girls get to know each other Raquel soon falls in love.
Pedro Martín has grown up hearing stories about his abuelito, his legendary crime-fighting, grandfather who was once a part of the Mexican Revolution! But that doesn’t mean Pedro is excited at the news that Abuelito is coming to live with their family. After all, Pedro has 8 brothers and sisters and the house is crowded enough! Still, Pedro piles into the Winnebago with his family for a road trip to Mexico to bring Abuelito home, and what follows is the trip of a lifetime, one filled with laughs and heartache. Along the way, Pedro finally connects with his abuelito and learns what it means to grow up and find his grito.
Featured in Volume XVI, Issue 3 of WOW Review.
Being twins means having a best friend forever but when one goes to middle school in Mexico and the other across the border in California, can that bond withstand the distance? Luis Fernando is staying local in Mexicali, Mexico, while Luisa Teresa crosses the border every day so she can go to a private school in Calexico, California. As they try to embrace new experiences close to and far from home, the twins hit obstacles: like making new friends and navigating school pressure without the other one for support. Fernando and Teresa finally have the chance to stand on their . . . isn’t that what the always wanted?
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.
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 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.
Discover the adventures of the original, world-famous gentleman thief who inspired generations of charming scoundrels and gallant anti-heroes in fiction and film for over a century.
An ambitious feminist anthology chronicling Indigenous rebellions around the world