Today I’ll be co-presenting with Jack Phoenix, a public librarian who wrote a book called Maximizing the Impact of Comics in Your Library for School Library Connection (SLC) via webinar. We’re walking through five practices to transform your libraries as it relates to graphic novels, so it goes without saying that I’m going to share some recently-read favorites in no particular order.

• Heavy Vinyl (Volumes 1 & 2) by Usdin
• The Tea Dragon Festival (Tea Dragon #2) by O’Neill
• Motor Crush #2 by Fletcher
• Miles Morales: Spider-Man (Volumes 1 & 2) by Ahmed

Yes, all of these happen to be fiction and I’ve definitely read a handful of nonfiction titles too that you can check out on my Goodreads account. Suffice it to say, these were the ones that stuck out because of their story and their artwork.

I have a huge student fan of Motor Crush, so when I saw volume 2 was out via Hoopla, I pounced in reading it. And it was just how I remembered the world from volume 1, just like Tea Dragon.

As for Miles Morales, you can’t go wrong with the action and adventure in addition to the humor amidst the seriousness. It’s probably also while I was so caught up in Heavy Vinyl. A less sci-fi version of Paper Girls, these ladies who work at Vinyl Destination in the 90s moonlight as a fight club working to solve a mystery. The strength of their individuality is made stronger when they’re together.

There’s nothing better than feasting visually on well-made graphic novels when the story is as strong as the illustrations which I can say is why I’m advising everyone take a look at these.