Classics Top 10 Graphic Novels for Youth he comics format is maturing at an increasingly rapid rate, and innovation is growing apace. Nowhere is this more Tevident than in these remarkable graphic novels, all reviewed in ComeAlive! Booklist over the past 12 months. —Ian Chipman Adventures in Cartooning: How to Turn Your Doodles into Comics. By James Sturm and others. Illus. by the authors. 2009. Roaring Brook/First Second, paper, $12.95 (9781596433694). K–Gr. 5. This innovative comic provides a primer on the conventions of sequential storytell- ing for youngsters and a rip-roaring adventure quest to boot. Graphic Classics® Bayou, v.1. By Jeremy Love. Illus. by the author. 2009. DC Comics/Zuda, paper, are the world’s $14.99 (9781401223823). Gr. 9–12. greatest stories, Set in the Jim Crow–era Deep South, this historical chronicles a young girl’s retold in graphic harrowing journey into a dark otherworld in an effort to save her father from a lynch novel form by mob. today’s most innovative The Color of Earth. By Kim Dong Hwa. Illus. by the author. 2009. Roaring artists. Perfect Brook/First Second, paper, $16.95 (9781596434585). Gr. 10–12. reading for ages The opening volume to a lyrical and exquisitely visualizedmanhwa trilogy, this book twelve and up. begins the emotional and sexual maturation of a young girl and shows how her story Now with full- mirrors her mother’s love life. color volumes! The Eternal Smile. By Gene Luen Yang. Illus. by Derek Kirk Kim. 2009. Roaring Innovative visual Brook/First Second, paper, $16.95 (9781596431560). Gr. 9–12. entrées to great writers Yang and Kim collaborate in this trio of stories, each with strikingly different and their legacies. visual styles but united by deft, dramatic reversals and portrayals of the potency of – Stephanie Zvirin, Booklist imagination. A splendidly inventive series. – Malcolm Jones, Gunnerkrigg Court: Orientation. By Thomas Siddell. Illus. by the author. 2009. Newsweek Archaia Studios, $26.95 (9781932386349). Gr. 6–12. The Discovery of This first volume collecting Siddell’s delightfully enigmatic follows An- the Year. – R.C. Harvey, timony Carver’s escapades in a peculiar boarding-school/industrial-complex, which The Comics Journal churns out oddities and deep intrigue with equal measure. Graphic Classics: Meanwhile. By Jason Shiga. Illus. by the author. 2010. Abrams/Amulet, $15.95 Louisa May Alcott (978-0-9787919-8-8) (9780810984233). Gr. 4–9. full-color. $17.95 Shiga’s mad-scientist take on the choose-your-own-adventure concept first asks Science Fiction readers to decide between a vanilla or chocolate ice-cream cone, and soon demands Classics that they choose wisely lest they annihilate all life on earth. (978-0-9787919-7-1) $ full-color. 17.95 Mercury. By Hope Larson. Illus. by the author. 2010. Atheneum, $17.99 Gothic Classics (978-0-9787919-0-2) (9781416935858). Gr. 9–12. b&w. $11.95 Gentle doses of magic realism help tell dual stories set in the same town, one of Adventure Classics Josey in 1859 and the other of her descendant, Tara, in 2009. A powerful look at the (978-0-9746648-4-2) ways past touches present as well as a unique coming-of-age story. b&w. $11.95 Horrror Classics Pluto, v.1. By Naoki Urasawa and Osamu Tezuka. Illus. by Naoki Urasawa. 2009. (978-0-9746648-1-1) VIZ Media, paper, $12.99 (9781421519180). Gr. 10–12. b&w. $9.95 Urasawa takes a from Tezuka’s classic Astro Boy and reimagines it Fantasy Classics (978-0-9787919-3-3) as sci-fi noir, as Detective Gesicht is called on to investigate the murders of the most b&w. $11.95 powerful robots on earth.

Plus twelve more exciting volumes! The Secret Science Alliance and the Copycat Crook. By Eleanor Davis. Illus. by All 7"x 10", 144 pgs, the author. 2009. Bloomsbury, $18.99 (9781599901428). Gr. 4–6. paperback. Now in An unlikely group of friends united by their love of gadgetry team up against a bookstores or order sneaky villain in this edifying celebration of smarts and science. direct from Eureka Productions at graphicclassics.com. The Storm in the Barn. By Matt Phelan. Illus. by the author. 2009. Candlewick, $24.99 (9780763636180). Gr. 5–8. School/library sales through Diamond, A young boy weathers the resolve-crumbling inertia of the Dust Bowl and screws Baker & Taylor, Follett, up his courage to take on the menace lurking in the barn in this masterful homage Ingram and others. to storytelling.

54 Booklist March 15, 2010 Youth Copyright of Booklist is the property of American Library Association / Booklist Publications and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.