The Arrival by Shaun Tan.

I had expected to see this honored by the Printz Committee, but that was not to be…  I consider this one of the top graphic novels of the year for two reasons.  First, I heard buzz about it from those in the graphic-novel know.  Second, I personally loved it.

The Arrival is a wordless graphic novel that tells the story of a man who is forced to leave his wife and child behind and head to a new country.  The land he leaves behind is shadowed with long reptilian tails filled with spikes.  The world he finds when he lands is filled with strange beings, machines that make no sense, and a society he cannot comprehend.  But he struggles on, his small white alien-like being at his side, until he can bring his family to be with him.  The girl is astonished at the new world, but soon learns her own way around and finds herself able to lend a newcomer a hand.

The beauty of this book is in the discovery.  It reads as a science fiction/fantasy graphic novel at first until the reader slowly realizes that the strangeness of the world is really revealing aspects of the universal struggle of immigrants to a new land.  There is a moment where readers will suddenly comprehend the book, and if they are anything like me will gasp and sigh in great satisfaction. 

The illustrations are wondrous, creating a world of astonishing detail, different enough from our own world to make the confusion universal.   Done in black and white and sepia, they combine an old-world quality with science fiction subjects. 

Highly recommended for teens and late elementary students ages 11-17. 

The Plain Janes by Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg.

This is a graphic novel featuring Jane whose life changes when she is in Metro City and a bomb falls.  She is scraped up from the incident, but profoundly affected.  Her parents move with her to the suburbs for safety.  But Jane finds it hard to fit in and continues writing to a man who was found next to her on the sidewalk when the bomb fell.  He is in a coma and no one has identified him.  Jane pours her heart out to him in letters as she slowly makes a group of friends who become the Plain Janes, and perform guerrilla art throughout their suburban community. 

This is a great book.  It has so many dimensions working together.  First, the fear of attack and the search for safey.  The finding of real friends and peers in a high school.  The need to express one’s self through art.  And it ties them all up into a very digestible and friendly bundle. 

The entire book rocks with great writing and wonderful art.  It is a graphic novel that is purely American but has the feel of manga.  I can see it being a gateway book to manga and the graphic novel genre for many teen girls. 

This one definitely deserves a place on library shelves across the country.