Summer Reading 2020: Graphic Novels

Quiet, sensitive Faith starts middle school already worrying about how she will fit in. To her surprise, Amanda, a popular eighth grader, convinces her to join the school soccer team, the Bloodhounds. Having never played soccer in her life, Faith ends up on the C team, a ragtag group that’s way better at drama than at teamwork. Although they are awful at soccer, Faith and her teammates soon form a bond both on and off the soccer field that challenges their notions of loyalty, identity, friendship, and unity.

Seventh grader Jordan Banks loves nothing more than drawing cartoons about his life. But instead of sending him to the art school of his dreams, his parents enroll him in a prestigious private school known for its academics, where Jordan is one of the few kids of color in his entire grade. Jordan soon finds himself torn between two worlds--and not really fitting into either one.

For most of her twelve years, Astrid has done everything with her best friend Nicole. But after Astrid falls in love with roller derby and signs up for derby camp, Nicole decides to go to dance camp instead. And so begins the most difficult summer of Astrid's life as she struggles to keep up with the older girls at camp, hang on to the friend she feels slipping away, and cautiously embark on a new friendship.

Sunny Lewin has been packed off to Florida to live with her grandfather for the summer. And the place where Gramps lives is not Disneyworld. It's full of . . . old people. Really old people. Luckily, Sunny meets Buzz, a boy who is completely obsessed with comic books, and soon they're having adventures of their own: facing off against golfball-eating alligators, runaway cats, and mysteriously disappearing neighbors. But the question remains -- why is Sunny down in Florida in the first place? The answer lies in a family secret that won't be secret to Sunny much longer. . .

When their community celebrates the annual Autumn Equinox Festival by lighting paper lanterns and floating them in the river, Ben and his classmates are determined to find out where those lanterns really go, and to ensure success in their mission, they've made a pact with two simple rules: No one turns for home. No one looks back. Soon, everyone turns back, except for Ben, and the school misfit, Nathaniel, and together they travel farther than anyone has ever gone, down a winding road full of magic, wonder, and unexpected friendship.

Hidden Figures meets Wonder Woman in this high-action, comic-inspired adventure that follows the World War II experiences of math whiz Josie O’Malley, who after being dismissed for being a girl is recruited into a top-secret superhero agency. Josie and two other recruits, Mae and Akiko, discover their superhero abilities and use them to thwart a Nazi plot to steal the ENIAC computer.

Learning from his dying grandfather that a magical circus at the heart of his favorite bedtime stories is real, young Micah and his friend Jenny embark on a journey to claim a miracle from the circus's wondrous magician, the Lightbender. The only problem is, the Lightbender doesn't want to keep his promise. And now it's up to Micah to get the miracle he came for.

The squirrel never saw the vacuum cleaner coming, but self-described cynic Flora Belle Buckman, who has read every issue of the comic book ‘Terrible Things Can Happen to You’ is the just the right person to step in and save him. What neither can predict is that Ulysses (the squirrel) has been born anew, with powers of strength, flight, and misspelled poetry.

Orphan, clock keeper, and thief, Hugo lives in the walls of a busy Paris train station, where his survival depends on secrets and anonymity. But when his world suddenly interlocks--like the gears of the clocks he keeps--with an eccentric, bookish girl and a bitter old man who runs a toy booth in the station, Hugo's undercover life and his most precious secret are put in jeopardy.

Knowing very little English, eleven-year-old Jingwen feels like an alien when his family immigrates to Australia. He daydreams about making all the cakes on the menu of Pie in the Sky, the bakery his father had planned to open before he unexpectedly passed away. One problem: his mother has said that Jingwen and his younger brother Yonghao are NOT to use the oven while she's at work. As the boys bake elaborate cakes, they'll have to cook up elaborate excuses to keep the cake-making a secret from Mama.

In this graphic adaptation, the adapter and illustrator focus on the humor, insight, and supporting cast of the classic, original text of Frank’s diary. German Jews living in Holland, Anne and her family go into hiding in the "Secret Annex" behind her father's business in 1942. Anne blooms like the hardiest, loveliest weed—a moody teenager whose wit, self-awareness, and rich imagination and fantasy life take center stage.

This biography explores the life of Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg - a modern feminist icon, and leader in the fight for equal treatment of girls and women in society and the workplace. She has evolved, step by step: the shy little girl became a child who questioned unfairness, who became a student who persisted despite obstacles, who became an advocate who resisted injustice, who became a judge who revered the rule of law, who became ... RBG.

March is a first-hand account of the author's lifelong struggle for civil and human rights. Book One spans John Lewis' youth in rural Alabama, his life-changing meeting with Martin Luther King, Jr., the birth of the Nashville Student Movement, and their battle to tear down segregation through nonviolent lunch counter sit-ins, building to a stunning climax on the steps of City Hall.

A science-savvy groundhog and her wise-cracking worm sidekick give a tour of the Earth’s history from the Big Bang and the formation of the planet through the various processes that formed the oceans and continents, Earth materials, and life. Lots of concrete examples and illustrations combine science and humor (Worm: ("Basalt? Does that go with Ba-Pepper?") in a way that will entertain, inform, and inspire readers to learn more.

The iconic actor and activist presents a graphic memoir detailing his experiences as a child prisoner in the Japanese-American internment camps of World War II. This is Takei's firsthand account of those years behind barbed wire, the joys and terrors of growing up under legalized racism, his mother's hard choices, his father's faith in democracy, and the way those experiences planted the seeds for his future.