The Understanding Monster - Book Two

Starred Review from Library Journal, “Its unflinching portrayal of oppression and the vital necessity of maintaining idealism in the face of utter despair is as timely as it is deeply stirring.”

Starred Review from Booklist, the journal of the American Library Association, “The potent narrative . . . proves hauntingly timely with today's global unrest, growing militarism, proliferating wars, and even U.S. politics. . . . Readers could well be witnessing an oracular warning of an imminent future.”

From Emmy-nominated journalist Melissa Chan and esteemed activist artist Badiucao comes a near-future dystopian graphic novel about technology, authoritarian government, and the lengths that one will go to in the fight for freedom. 

It's 2035. The US and China are at war. America is a proto-fascist state. Taiwan is divided into two. As conflict escalates between nuclear powers, three idealistic youths who first met in Hong Kong develop diverging beliefs about how best to navigate this techno-authoritarian landscape. Andy, Maggie, and Olivia travel different paths toward transformative change, each confronting to what extent they will fight for freedom, and who they will become in doing so. 

A powerful and important book about global totalitarian futures, and the costs of resistance.

Death stalks a quartet of girls – or is it the other way around?

A simple, elemental story of a group of adorable, little girls evading the specter of Death perfectly complements Gabriel Howell’s poetic diary/manifesto/wishlist. What looks like a Victorian children’s book complete with moral lessons, depicts an internal and external tug-of-war between vulnerability and intimacy, relatability and honesty, observation and isolation. The message remains raw and uncensored: don’t hide it in a book; forget about who is or isn’t watching; Forget Me Not.

In this gripping graphic novel, a Jewish journalist encounters an extension of the horrors of the Holocaust in North Africa.

In the lead-up to World War II, the rising tide of fascism and antisemitism in Europe foreshadowed Hitler's genocidal campaign against Jews. But the horrors of the Holocaust were not limited to the concentration camps of Europe: antisemitic terror spread through Vichy French imperial channels to France's colonies in North Africa, where in the forced labor camps of Algeria and Morocco, Jews and other "undesirables" faced brutal conditions and struggled to survive in an unforgiving landscape quite unlike Europe. In this richly historical graphic novel, historian Aomar Boum and illustrator Nadjib Berber take us inside this lesser-known side of the traumas wrought by the Holocaust by following one man's journey as a Holocaust refugee.

Hans Frank is a Jewish journalist covering politics in Berlin, who grows increasingly uneasy as he witnesses the Nazi Party consolidate power and decides to flee Germany. Through connections with a transnational network of activists organizing against fascism and anti-Semitism, Hans ultimately lands in French Algeria, where days after his arrival, the Vichy regime designates all foreign Jews as "undesirables" and calls for their internment. On his way to Morocco, he is detained by Vichy authorities and interned first at Le Vernet, then later transported to different camps in the deserts of Morocco and Algeria. With memories of his former life as a political journalist receding like a dream, Hans spends the next year and a half in forced labor camps, hearing the stories of others whose lives have been upended by violence and war.

Through bold, historically inflected illustrations that convey the tension of the coming war and the grimness of the Vichy camps, Aomar Boum and Nadjib Berber capture the experiences of thousands of refugees through the fictional Hans, chronicling how the traumas of the Holocaust extended far beyond the borders of Europe.

New York Public Library Top 10 Graphic Novels of 2024

American Library Associate Top 10 Best Graphic Novels for Adults of 2024

Starred Review from Publishers Weekly. "It's a revealing visualization of a rare, 'depersonalizing' condition and how Sweeney finds 'drops of disabled joy whenever I can.' Sweeney's subtle and elegant art reflects the nuance of her moment-to-moment struggle."

An evocative and heartfelt graphic memoir about the challenges of living with a progressive disability.

When Maria Sweeney was young, she kept count of her broken bones. As she grew older, she stopped. Living with Bruck syndrome, a rare progressive condition that gives her very brittle bones and joint abnormalities, meant that those numbers climbed and climbed.

Today, she struggles every day, living in an often-inaccessible world. As an ambulatory wheelchair user, ordinary actions like entering a building, sitting at a café, or holding a cup of tea can be drastically different for her than for others.

With lush illustrations, Maria tells the story of her lifelong struggle to obtain care in an increasingly complicated and disinterested US healthcare system. But for every step that presents a struggle, there's also beauty, friendship, art, and growth. She documents the relief she's found in alternative therapies, particularly medical marijuana; in loving community and chosen family; and in nature and her creative practice. A powerfully understated critique of our modern world, Brittle Joints offers a generous, expansive look at how to live and love amidst the challenges of survival.

“This visually spectacular book offers a powerful dive into the depths of fear and trauma and a reminder that the impact of violence spreads far beyond the official victim.” —Rebecca Solnit, author of Orwell's Roses and Hope in the Dark

When someone is murdered next door, it changes everything about the way you live your life.

When Hugh was ten years old, he walked home from school to find his friends next door crying outside – they had just come home and discovered their mother’s body. She had been murdered.

Now an adult, Hugh has a happy social life and a successful career as an artist in Oakland, California. But even so he is plagued by anxiety, anger, and panic attacks. As he attends therapy and looks back on his childhood, he comes to realize the trauma and stress that the murder next door had on his life, and how it still affects him today.

Does trauma ever go away? Or does it just hang around, in the backs of our minds forever? This thoughtful, powerful memoir explores how one event in childhood can make a permanent mark on someone’s life.

Winner of the 2022 Palestine Book Award

“An artistic triumph that will stand as an enduring testament to the spirit of the Palestinian people. Mohammad Sabaaneh is a master.”--Joe Sacco, winner of the American Book Award for Palestine

What does freedom look like from inside an Israeli prison?

A bird perches on the cell window and offers a deal: “You bring the pencil, and I will bring the stories,” stories of family, of community, of Gaza, of the West Bank, of Jerusalem, of Palestine. The two collect threads of memory and intergenerational trauma from ongoing settler-colonialism. Helping us to see that the prison is much larger than a building, far wider than a cell; it stretches through towns and villages, past military checkpoints and borders. But hope and solidarity can stretch farther, deeper, once strength is drawn of stories and power is born of dreams. Translating headlines into authentic lived experiences, these stories come to life in the striking linocut artwork of Mohammad Sabaaneh, helping us to see Palestinians not as political symbols, but as people.