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Nick Pope: Summer of ’88

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by Laboni Das Christopher Stanton and Raymond Klecker’s Nick Pope: Summer of ’88 continues the evocative, diaristic exploration of adolescence introduced in its prequel, Nick Pope: A Diary (2023), deepening its engagement with questions of identity, embodiment, and emotional vulnerability. While the earlier volume foregrounded Nick’s social alienation and bullying, this sequel turns inward, charting a more complex terrain of emotional fragmentation, artistic self-exploration, and relational instability. Presented once again in the form of an illustrated diary, the narrative unfolds over the summer of 1988. The diary format remains central to the book’s appeal, combining handwritten text with expressive black-and-white… Read More

Surviving the City Series

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by Angélique Roy   Surviving the City is a three-volume young adult graphic novel series set in Winnipeg, Manitoba. It is written by Tasha Spillett, an Afro-Indigenous educator, public speaker, and scholar of Cree and Trinidadian descent, whose passion is to advocate for Indigenous women and women of colour and to create supportive, joyful worlds for children within her work. All three volumes are illustrated by Natasha Donovan, a Métis and white illustrator from Vancouver known for her work in children’s literature and graphic novels. The series follows two teenage best friends, Miikwan, who is Anishinaabe, and Dez, who is… Read More

Us

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by Soph Myers-Kelley Us is an educational memoir about a couple navigating their gender and sexual identities together. Originally starting out (and appearing to others) as a straight couple, Sara is knocked off her feet when her partner confesses that she may be a trans woman. Sara traverses the discovery journey of sexual identity- if she still loves her partner as she transitions socially and physically, what does this mean about her own sexual orientation? While Sara considers where and if she falls on the LGBTQIAP+ spectrum, her partner Diana traverses whether being a trans woman is the best fitting… Read More

Connecting Threads – Five Siblings Lost and Found

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by Janet Chan Who am I? Where did I come from? These questions are ones that many adoptees may have found themselves asking. In Connecting Threads: Five Siblings Lost and Found, EM Blake shares her personal experience of being adopted and finding answers to these compelling questions. Blake takes us on a journey through her early life with her adoptive family to the discovery of her biological family as an adult. Along with the questions of identity, she also addresses the challenges of not knowing your family medical history. Removed from her home at an early age, Blake was adopted… Read More

Middle Distance: A Graphic Memoir

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By Karol Kovalovich Weaver     In Middle Distance: A Graphic Memoir, author Mylo Choy shares the physical and emotional lessons that running taught them. The narrative follows Choy’s running journey from middle school to adulthood. As the book progresses, the reader learns the physical, emotional, and spiritual connections that Choy has to running. Using text, imagery, and section breaks, Choy shares that the middle path was key to navigating physical and emotional challenges and finding comfort in oneself and with one’s identity. The title of Choy’s graphic memoir, Middle Distance, highlights the main themes—balance, the middle path, in-between, and moderation–of the… Read More

Spellbound: A Graphic Memoir

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by Soph Myers-Kelley Bishakh Som in Spellbound introduces the reader to a memoir experience about culture, immigration, queerness, transness, tantalizing foods, and crushing identity crises. It’s ideal for older teenagers and adults. One of the most interesting creative decisions Som makes in her book is the choice to use a stand-in cisgender Bengali American character named Anjali instead of depicting her own likeness as the protagonist. Som herself is a transgender Bengali American woman, who came out as an adult.  She originally created this work as a diary comic before stringing together longer chapters. This book is a complex, note… Read More