When Stars Are Scattered by Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed

I really loved this graphic novel. I'm so interested in this genre of realistic graphic novels that depict hard, real-life events, like Dancing at the Pity Party. I think it's such an effective way to show emotion and to use simple language to convey what happened. (I remember I wrote a whole essay about the comic book format in Maus my sophomore year of college. I think I need to re-read it.) This is a graphic novel telling the story of a refugee camp in Africa (I can't remember the exact country now), which is an extremely hard and sad topic, from the perspective of two boys living in the refugee camp. I loved the relationship between the two brothers and what they learned as they grew up, and how it showed that there was still hope even in one of the most difficult places on earth. 

White Bird by R. J. Palacio

I'll be honest, I didn't LOVE Wonder by R. J. Palacio. I thought it was fine but kind of over the top with the message. So I've never checked out any of her other books, but then I heard that she wrote a graphic novel set in WWII--and I was all in. I'm super interested in graphic novels (even though I haven't read a TON of them), but I got this one for Dane and he insisted that I read it. It was so good! It tells the story of a Jewish girl in WWII who has to hide from the Nazis and how she survived in a friend's barn. Like any WWII Holocaust story, it's depressing and sad. But I loved the graphic novel format for this book and loved how it packed such a punch in a short reading time. 

Real Friends, Best Friends, and Friends Forever by Shannon Hale

I really liked this graphic novel series by Shannon Hale. It's a really cool idea to me--a graphic novel memoir for middle schoolers about Shannon Hale's middle school experience with her friends, her anxiety, her goals and dreams, and learning about getting to know people and make friends. I really loved how realistic and honest she was about what it was like for her. I feel like this could be a really great book for any middle schoolers, especially girls, just showing how normal these friend problems can be and how important good friends are. I really enjoyed all of these books and I especially loved how fast I got through them since they were graphic novels. 

Dancing at the Pity Party by Tyler Feder

I absolutely loved everything about this book. It was such an interesting idea--a graphic novel about how the author lost her mom to cancer while she was in college. I loved how she wanted to honor her mom by writing about grief and about her story with her mom and her family and how hard it was, and how she used this graphic novel format to make it really accessible. The pictures and the words were impossible to take apart--I think it would have been a way less interesting story without the pictures to illustrate what she was writing. I loved this and am so glad I read it. 

Dragon Hoops by Gene Luen Yang

I heard about this being a great graphic novel about basketball, and since I haven't read many graphic novels (okay, just one, but I've spent a lot of time getting graphic novels for my boys so I feel like it's been more than that). This was an interesting story because I felt like it could have worked really well as an regular book written with words and no illustrations. Yang is writing the story of the varsity basketball team at the high school at which he teaches, but he works in parts about the history of basketball, the history of basketball with different racial and ethnic groups in America, basketball in China, and the school itself. Yang also works in a lot of personal aspects of his own story, like his decision to stop teaching to work fully on comics, and his wrestling with accepting a new opportunity to do the Superman comics. I feel like there were some things I would have maybe taken out to focus more on the basketball and the storyline of the championship, but I guess he had some good reasons to include that stuff. I thought the graphic novel format was an interesting choice, but I really enjoyed that part of it. I was thinking about giving it to Dane to read, but there is a bunch of swearing (written with symbols, but still) and I think he will be more interested in it when he is older anyways. (The best part of the graphic novel is how quickly it went--it was a huge, 400+-page book, but it only took a few hours to get through.)

New Kid by Jerry Craft

This is a graphic novel that won the Newbery, which I'm guessing is a first. I really enjoyed reading this though. It is not something that I would have picked up otherwise (surprisingly, I'm not the most into graphic novels) but I liked how this one was a super realistic book, based on a kid going to a new private school in New York City and being one of the only people of color at the whole school. You see everything through Jordan's perspective and all of the micro-agressions the few people of color have to deal with at his school. He slowly makes friends with kids, starts to get to know the school, and adjusts to this new life of his. But not everything is resolved; you can tell that these issues will continue for the next year, but Jordan is ready for it. I really liked seeing everything from Jordan's perspective, and thought this book was funny, interesting, and believable. It was definitely a good read.