Jade is a hot-tempered teenaged aristocrat in modern-day France. Her family has prestige but no money, so Jade’s mom keeps pushing her to cozy up to her wealthier peers—and, ideally, marry one of them. But Jade is focused on her secret passion: serious weightlifting.
In fact, Jade has already made so much progress with her lifting that it can be hard to hide her strength. Like when she gets mad at a boorish young rich boy at a party and sort of… launches him into the refreshments table. Society would never approve of her lifting weights, so Jade scrambles to explain her feat of strength before blurting out that she must have been overcome by… love!
Jade’s matchmaking mother is, of course, thrilled. She would be a lot less thrilled to know that the only boy Jade actually likes is a groom in a rich family’s stables—a groom with huge muscles, whose workout routine Jade is determined to discover. Not that Jade has time for romance anyway – she’s juggling friends and frenemies, high school and high society events, all while keeping her weightlifting a secret. But with multiple boys now pursuing her, romance may be in Jade’s future whether she’s ready for it or not.
Originally a successful French webcomic (Colossale), Colossal is a fun rom-com with a shojo manga vibe and an oddball premise that grabs your attention. Who would expect the feisty young socialite to be obsessed with weightlifting? But Jade’s passion for lifting isn’t just a weird quirk: the story weaves it into her backstory and the way she thinks. Jade can be impulsive and irritable, though she usually keeps her temper in check. Early in the book, she sometimes imagines using her huge strength to punch people she finds annoying, which feels a little extreme, but Jade stops doing it after the first few scenes. She often fumbles social situations, but she cares about her friends and doing the right thing.
The rest of the cast has plenty of personality, too. There’s thoughtful Alexander, the groom Jade likes, who is much more than an enviable set of muscles; his employer, a rich mean girl who is struggling to fit into high society; the handsome but unpleasant rich boy who becomes far more interested in Jade after she pitches him into a buffet; Jade’s new friend, a do-gooder who convinces Jade to help with a charity function; and a cute but ruthless boy who discovers Jade’s weightlifting secret and demands she train him. There are also various family members and Jade’s supportive and quirky weightlifting buddies.
The art style is grounded in realism but with touches of a more fanciful shojo manga style. It focuses on the characters, giving them expressive (sometimes comically exaggerated) faces and postures. Their outfits change frequently to fit the occasion as the plot romps through lively scenarios and settings: riding lessons from Alexander, a stag hunt, preparing and staging a costumed charity ball, working out at the gym, hosting a sleepover, and more. Backgrounds are mostly minimal, with just enough detail to establish the settings.
There is no nudity (though Alexander sometimes gets shirtless for non-sexual reasons), but there are a few references to sex and a few swear words. Mostly, though, the story is funny and silly, with some heartfelt moments and sweet emotional connections between characters. Hand it to fans of rom-coms and shojo manga who like the sound of the premise.
Colossal By Rutile Willcox Art by Diane Truc Abrams, 2026 ISBN: 9781419777813
Company Age Rating: 14-18
NFNT Age Recommendation: Older Teen (16-18), Teen (13-16) Creator Representation: French, Mauritian, Character Representation: French,
While not the first graphic novel to be written about the atrocities of the Holocaust (and surely not the last), Ginette Kolinka’s Adieu Birkenau approaches the subject with a surprising amount of levity and accessibility. The comic splits its time between the present (well, the present of 2020), in which the 95-year-old Kolinka re-visits the Auschwitz-Birkenau prison camp with a group of students, and the events of the past. Kolinka recounts her early life in France, her large family’s attempt to escape Nazi persecution, and most notably the experience of trying to survive in camp as she was being abused, humiliated, and dehumanized.
Kolinka and her co-writers J.D. Morvan and Victor Matet present her time in the concentration camp with a matter-of-factness that avoids the dramatic, emotionally-wrought approach one might expect of a Holocaust survivor’s story. This comes across less as objectivity and more so like a survivor who has almost curated her memories so as to not be incapacitated by them. Indeed, memories seem to be a major theme of Adieu Birkenau.
It’s difficult to read Adieu Birkenau without viewing it in the context of the great tradition of memoirs that use comics and graphic novels as a way to process extremely traumatizing events, such as They Called Us Enemy, Persepolis, March, and especially Maus. Like those books, Kolinka’s work is deeply concerned with memory, and how it plays a role in processing grief. Kolinka is exceedingly upfront about how her memory is unreliable and that her tendency to block out some of the most horrendous aspects allowed her to survive. This is cleverly conveyed visually, as figures in the camps are often depicted as dark, vaguely human-shaped clouds, as if Kolinka can only remember the slightest impression of them. In the back half of the book, panels often contain scenes from both the past and present, as if to remind the reader that these events long past are still very much alive today.
Artists Cesc and Efa bring a sense of whimsy and warmth to the art that seems more informed by the animation of Disney or Studio Ghibli than most comic illustration. Characters have soft, rounded features, and big, expressive eyes that give the reader an immediate glance into their thoughts and feelings. The playfulness of the line work contrasts greatly, however, with the subtle brown and gray tones that characterize much of the graphic novel and add to the dreariness and despair of recounting life in a prison camp.
Although Adieu Birkenau is recommended for adults, there is very little that would make it inappropriate for younger readers–especially if you’re looking for an accessible way to introduce them to the horrors of the Holocaust. There are brief depictions of nudity in recounting the ways the Nazis forced the prisoners to strip down in the camps, but it’s handled very carefully and clearly used to highlight the sense of embarrassment and dehumanization that Jewish prisoners were subjected to. The most gruesome imagery one might expect to find in a comic written by a Holocaust survivor is also not explicitly shown–which certainly ties into the way that Kolinka repressed the worst aspects of her experience just to survive.
If you like stories that put a human face on big, overwhelming tragedies, like the previously mentioned Maus, then Adieu Birkenau will be right up your alley. Kolinka approaches the subject matter with much more humor than, say, Art Spiegelman, but she doesn’t gloss over the ways that trauma sticks with survivors and how our memory plays an important role in processing such horrors. It is a worthwhile addition to the hugely important genre of comics by creators trying to make sense of real world horrors.
Adieu Birkenau By Ginette Kolinka, Jean-David Morvan, and Victor Matet Art by Ricard Efa and Cesc F. Dalmases SelfMadeHero, 2024 ISBN: 9781914224232
NFNT Age Recommendation: Adult (18+), Older Teen (16-18) Creator Representation: French, Jewish Character Representation: French, Jewish
In mid-90s Paris, eighteen-year-old Nina is struggling to find her path. The daughter of a Black Muslim from Gambia and a Polish Jewish woman whose family narrowly escaped the Holocaust, Nina feels out of place almost everywhere: the university she attends, the parties thrown by fellow students, and definitely her ballet classes, where she is told “You’re a great dancer, but Sleeping Beauty is not Black.” When her ballet teacher suggests that she is not a good fit because “the corps de ballet must appear uniform,” Nina quits, feeling more adrift and rejected than ever. But when she discovers track and field – and a coach who says she has great potential as a runner—Nina is intrigued. She’s also intrigued by Jackson, a handsome runner on the team.
Nina joins the team, works hard, and soon qualifies for the regional championships. Finally, people are celebrating her accomplishments. But then things take a turn: three other athletes sexually assault Nina in the locker room after the championships. She doesn’t tell anyone, but the trauma eats at her. Meanwhile her crush, Jackson, keeps giving her mixed messages. Nina starts smoking and drinking, getting into trouble at school and on the running team. Her family, her best friend, and the running team’s sympathetic doctor are worried. Can Nina find her way through these challenges to a bright future?
This book is an adaptation of a semi-autobiographical novel. The author, Rachel Khan, shares Nina’s heritage and went from classical dance to track and field at about Nina’s age. In a forward to the graphic novel, Khan calls it a coming of age story about trying to find your way when you “don’t look like anyone around” and are deeply aware of the “weighty history” of your family.
While the running element adds interest, the real focus is Nina’s emotional life. As the book goes on, she speaks out more: she snaps at her racially insensitive professor, argues with her running coach, and tells off a classmate for seeing her as “exotic.” Though her anger is usually justified—after all, she faces problems as serious as racism and sexual violence – she sometimes has reactions that may feel odd or surprising to readers. For instance, when the running team’s doctor admonishes her for using drugs, she responds “I don’t need any lectures from you, Karim. My father is the child of slaves who was then adopted. So I could care less about your team and its stupid honor.” In this case, even the doctor pushes back, asking “What’s that got to do with your getting high”.
Despite her struggles, Nina has good things going for her. She adores her family and her Jewish religious community. She has a supportive best friend and, by the end of the book, a new romance. Her success on the track also boosts her self-esteem and helps her finally feel like she belongs.
The scene when three other athletes sexually assault Nina is not explicit, nor does she ever recount the incident on the page, but readers see her trauma and physical injuries. The book has a little other violence, like pushing and hitting between Nina and a running team rival, and some swearing. There is no nudity, and nothing more intimate than a couple of kisses. Nina reflects on and discusses religion and race, which both feature heavily in her experiences.
The artwork is a simple but expressive cartoon style. The characters are dynamic and distinctive. There is a wide variety of settings: Nina’s home, her school, the track, and more. Some are drawn with detail and interest, while others are sketched in and simplified, keeping them firmly in the background. The color scheme supports the mood and feel of different scenes: cozy neutrals in Nina’s family home, sunny brights when she runs on the track, and so on.
Nina’s experience—drawn from the author’s own—will resonate with some readers and perhaps be illuminating for others. Though it is fictionalized, the book may appeal to fans of memoirs.
I Run to Make My Heart Beat By Rachel Khan Art by Aude Massot FairSquare Comics, 2024 ISBN: 9781960171054
Related media: Book to Comic
NFNT Age Recommendation: Adult (18+) Creator Representation: French, Gambian, , Character Representation: French, Gambian, Jewish ,
This graphic novel is a biographical account based on George Sand’s life, detailing the years of her early youth, her budding romantic relationships and her last years spent in Nohant, France, during the early nineteenth century.
George Sand was born Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin and her parents were Maurice Dupin de Francueil and Sophie-Victoire Delaborde. During her childhood, George loved her parents dearly and was a bit of a wild child. The graphic novel mentions her close maternal relationship with her mother and especially grandmother, Marie Aurore whom owns a considerable fortune and the estate at Nohant.
The graphic novel features illustrations of characters that are hand drawn, in pen and ink. Although the publisher aims this novel for a teen audience, there are several prominent historical and literary figures and political themes mentioned in the novel, which would be better suited for a college aged readership.
The graphic novel goes into extensive detail of George Sand’s life as she develops into a prominent, outspoken writer, adopting a masculine identity when she goes out on the town and prefers to wear men’s clothing. There are candid scenes of George Sands romantic life, mentioning her various relationships with creative and artistic men including Jules Sandeau, Charles Didier, Frederic Chopin and others. This graphic novel is a fairly dense read and is best suited for readers whom are interested in French literature written during 19th century and can understand the rammifications of the French Revolution and Napoleon Bonaparte years altering the economic and socio-political landscape in France.
George Sand: True Genius, True Woman By Severine Vidal Art by Kim Consigny SelfMadeHero, 2024 ISBN: 9781914224201
NFNT Age Recommendation: Older Teen (16-18) Creator Representation: French, Character Representation: French, Bisexual,
“When you asked if you were bipolar, she was looking for a wolf, so she wasn’t going to find a fox.”
In her graphic memoir, A Fox in My Brain, Lou Lubie explores her experience with and diagnosis of cyclothymia bipolar disorder. After a depressive episode in high school, Lubie experienced drastic and confusing shifts in mood and energy. Therapists and others in her life often dismissed her concerns about her depression, saying that she was too young to be really depressed and that it will pass on its own. It was years before therapists took her concerns seriously, and she was able to find treatments and medications to help reign in the fox in her brain.
It would be difficult to discuss the illustrations and story separately. Lubie illustrates the book in a palette limited to shades of bright orange and gray. The simplified palate and illustrations help to highlight the personification of her shifts in mood and energy. Some of my favorite personifications are early in her depression, with swallowed pills dispersing a shadow of depression and in another depressive roots clinging to her while she attempts to pull it out. As the story progresses, her depression is more often illustrated as a menacing shadow with sharp eyes and teeth bearing down on her. It isn’t until a therapist starts to ask about her non-depressive moods when she is full of energy and feels invincible, that an orange fox starts to peep into the illustrations.
After talking with the therapists and a little digging on the internet, she came across the term cyclothymia, a temperament characterized by mood swings. It is at this point that she notices the fox in her brain. A mischievous (sometimes cute) creature with a dark side. Cyclothymia isn’t a disorder, but can become one when fed with stress, exhaustion, trauma, and in Lubie’s case, possibly antidepressants (which can trigger manic episodes). When classified as a disorder, it is considered a lesser form of Bipolar I or II. In the book at one point, she describes it as Bipolar II ½. Rather than the extreme and often long-lasting shifts of Bipolar I and II, bipolarity with cyclothymia is characterized by more frequent shifts. The moods exceed the typical, and can sometimes be triggered more easily than those with more drastic bipolar disorders.
Lubie’s diagnosis brought about insights into herself and her relationships with others, including friends and her boyfriend. Naming the fox in her brain, also aided in her ability to manage it. She began to see and acknowledge that the fox was there, and learned to feed it with moments of novelty while also keeping it on a leash. Cognitive Behavior Therapy combined with medication gave her back control of her life. Interspersed throughout her story are informative asides about the nature of depression, bipolarity, cyclothymia, and associated treatments, and she ends the book with letters from others experiencing this condition, offering her advice and validation.
There were a few frustrating moments in her informational asides with some fatphobia. While concerning, I think that the book as a whole is so powerful, well-written, and potentially validating, I can forgive those missteps. I am not a therapist, nor do I have a bipolar diagnosis, so I can’t speak directly to the accuracy of the information about the disorder and management. According to a letter in the end pages, she wrote this under the supervision of a therapist, to help provide the best information about cyclothymia bipolar disorder. She also notes that this book cannot take the place of a diagnosis or advice from a licensed therapist or psychiatrist.
Lubie suffers from suicidal ideation and is at one point voluntarily hospitalized for it. She personifies her suicidal thoughts through conversations with the grim reaper in the shadowy depths of a body of water. This could be triggering for some, and definitely worth noting when considering for purchase. However, I think it is a great exploration of a difficult topic, written in a way that is informative to anyone with or without bipolar disorders, and validating for those who do. This will be purchased for my high school collection, and I believe that many students will resonate with a story about struggling to identify and manage mental health.
A Fox in My Brain By Lou Lubie FairSquare Comics, 2024 ISBN: 9781960171108
Publisher Age Rating: 13-18 NFNT Age Recommendation: Older Teen (16-18), Teen (13-16)
Creator Representation: French, Bipolar Character Representation: French, Bipolar
Translated from French by Aleshia Jensen, Camille Jourdy’s novel follows Juliette’s trip home from Paris to visit her more provincial family. She is also on a journey to revisit her roots and to handle her own growing, crippling anxiety and fears. While her family is delighted to see her, they do not actually pay any attention to her and her increasing vulnerability because they are busy with their own lives, issues, and family ties. Her family is complicated and entirely relatable and authentic to readers of this gentle slice-of-life graphic novel.
While the graphic novel is filled with people of all sizes and backgrounds the main characters are members of Juliette’s immediate family. Juliette’s older sister Marylou, a married mother of two children, has a lover, a man who works in a costume shop and visits her dressed as a bear, a wolf, a white rabbit, and as a ghost. They have lustful and joyful sex on Thursdays in the greenhouse in her backyard.
Marylou is happy with having an illicit affair, but nameless Lover Boy wants more of a permanent relationship. The sisters’ parents have been divorced for a long time but still torment each other each time they meet. Their mother dresses and behaves as a free spirit, taking on a series of younger lovers as well as painting large abstracts that are displayed in a local gallery. Their father, who Juliette is staying with during her visit, is the opposite, he is filled with self-doubts and convinced that he is developing dementia. Juliette’s grandmother no longer recognizes family members or has a reliable memory except when she reveals a long-kept family secret to Juliette.
The only non-family main character is Georges, the current tenant of the apartment where Juliette and Marylou lived as children. He is also a lost soul and someone seeking restoration and love in the local bar. His encounters with Juliette offer the possibility of a romantic closure for the two of them and the duckling they adopted but, sorry for the spoiler, this is not the direction the author takes the reader.
This is a novel of close encounters and careful observation of the setting, the people, and their relationships. It is done without judgment and the reader glides along with Juliette as she maneuvers through emotional and timeless passages of disappointment, mortality, and fading dreams to a place Juliette and Georges refer to, the “tragic dimension.” At the same time, it is also a novel filled with wonder, humor, and enjoyment for the reader.
Jensen’s translation from the original French presents, with sharpness and amusement, a natural cadence of family discussions. We can see, hear, and feel each of the individual characters in the town and they look and sound like members of a close-knit community anywhere. The point of view often shifts without warning from small encounters to larger ones but the shifts do not feel disjointed as the details in each of the panels slow the reader into a meditative state where moving from one situation to another seems natural and organic. This is a novel to be savored and not rushed in the least.
First published in French in 2016, Juliette is Jourdy’s eighth book, and her expertise is immediately recognizable as she is effective in control of the pacing, the panels, the color, the storyline, and her characters. Her illustrations are precise and filled with minute details of family and small-town life. These details are even more pronounced because of the simplicity of the background and the shortage of borders. Most pages are filled with simple vignettes, snapshots of the characters, their relationships, and environment. These busy pages are interspersed with full page drawings that are filled with deeper color tones that often indicate a change of tone or staging. A caveat for public library collections: there are numerous pages filled with Marylou and Lover Boy’s sexual encounters in the garden. These are tastefully done but I think some North American communities may not be as open as the French may be in their depictions of humanity in all their encounters.
The subtitle, ‘or, the Ghosts Return in the Spring’ is evocative and revealing by the end of the novel. It may refer to the rather humorous adventures of the ‘ghost’ hiding from disclosure or, more possibly, the ghosts of memory, family relationships, and our own selves.
Juliette or, the Ghosts Return in the Spring By Camille Jourdy Drawn & Quarterly, 2023 ISBN: 9781770466647
Publisher Age Rating: adult
NFNT Age Recommendation: Adult (18+) Creator Representation: French, Character Representation: French, Anxiety, Depression
Vincent Van Gogh’s story has always been a complicated one, but the strength of his art and vision has always stood strong—as has his creative and emotional impact so many years after his death.
From Black Panel Press and Jamison Odone comes The Man in the Painter’s Room, a graphic novel telling of Van Gogh’s later years of life and unexpected death. Based on multiple sources and drawing heavily from the memories of the daughter of the innkeeper who housed Van Gogh after his departure from an institution, Odone’s narrative is an intimate look at the painter’s life. The book depicts Van Gogh’s falling out with fellow artist Gaugin through his hospitalization and correspondence with his family and ultimately to his final days wandering the French countryside to create his last works, all while facing the mental illness that followed him for so much of his life.
In delivering the story, Odone gives us a simple presentation that prioritizes quiet moments—interspersed with excerpts of letters between Van Gogh and his family—rather than a detailed biographical accounting. The writing leaves many of the specifics unexplained, opting instead to simply follow Van Gogh along his journey through a selection of scenes stitched together with just enough connective tissue to understand the context. This is not a book for someone wanting an exhaustive biography full of facts and details. Rather, The Man in the Painter’s Room seeks to understand the man himself—understand how Van Gogh moved through the world and understand the conflicting parts of his soul that ultimately drove him to his death.
The book takes a melancholy tone from the beginning, capturing the sparseness of the countryside and the lone painter lost amidst a larger world. But Odone’s writing never loses sight of Van Gogh’s vision. This was a man who sought beauty in every corner of existence, and we see Van Gogh enraptured by houses and skylines, turning the natural world into art that would far outlive him. And the story, even as it relays the biographical details, never limits itself to dry recollections of history. Reminiscent of Tom Gauld’s long-form storytelling, Odone’s work is run through with a dry and subtle humor that finds comedy in simplicity and turns the mundane into something that is always entertaining—and sometimes also profound.
Odone’s art captures the simple and unassuming life of its subject. Without complex detail, the panels weave together a stylized cartoonist style with flourishes of Van Gogh’s own view of the world, embodying a quiet artist in search of beauty and peace amidst a community that did not always see what he did. Stepping sometimes into the surreal and balancing realism with the weight of Van Gogh’s own difficult mental health, the artistic style and straightforward writing complement each other and keep the book engaging.
Ultimately, The Man in the Painter’s Room is a eulogy of Van Gogh’s life and legacy. A simple man who battled his own demons for much of his life; his artistic legacy continues to hold sway. Odone makes sure to recognize the impact that Van Gogh had on his contemporaries and those that followed. The book plays out more as a slice-of-life than true biography, but in balancing subtle humor with the beauty and tragedy of its subject, Odone’s tribute to a famous artist is well worth the read.
For any fans of biography or art history—as well as those who enjoy work similar to Gauld’s Mooncop—The Man in the Painter’s Room packs a lot into its minimal presentation. It will probably be of most interest to older readers who appreciate its subtleties, but there’s not much here that would offend younger readers either. In the end, it might be a slightly niche title, but delivered with both skill and empathy, it’s a caring tribute to both the artist and the man who left so much work to those of us who followed him.
The Man in the Painter’s Room By Jamison Odone Black Panel Press, 2020 ISBN: 9781999470432
NFNT Age Recommendation: Adult (18+), Older Teen (16-18)
Character Representation: French, Ambiguous Mental Illness, Depression
Trailblazing French filmmaker Alice Guy-Blaché was present at the birth of modern film, a contemporary of the Lumière brothers and Georges Méliès. In Alice Guy: First Lady of Film, writer–artist duo Catel & Bocquet draw on original research from late media critic Francis Lacassin to document Guy’s career as the first major woman filmmaker and a pioneer of her industry.
The graphic biography opens with Guy’s 1873 birth and childhood in Europe and Chile. Lively and outspoken, Alice has an early interest in acting that is deemed unsuitable by her middle-class French family. Instead of taking to the stage, she goes to work as a secretary for what will soon become the Gaumont Film Company. Catel and Bocquet depict the chaos of these early years of film, with competing firms squabbling to dominate the new market. In this cutthroat environment, Alice is able to demonstrate business acumen and gain professional standing despite her gender.
In addition to business savvy, Guy has a vision for what film could be—a vehicle for telling stories. She teams up with a cinematographer to film the 1896 film La Fée aux Choux, a fantasy of cabbage-patch babies that may have been the first narrative film. As Alice finds success directing films for Gaumont, she and her collaborators develop the conventions that will define their industry, from filming on location to creating special effects to hammering out the logistics of public film screenings.
Alice also grapples with the ethical issues that face any unregulated new industry. She must take decisive action when an underaged actress is sexually assaulted by an older male professional on her set, or when a script about bullfighting raises questions of filming animal cruelty. Alice’s status as a woman filmmaker informs the way she handles these challenges and inspires her to take risks, from an attempted collaboration with activist Rose Pastor Stokes on a film about family planning to the production of A Fool and His Money, likely the first film with an all-African American cast.
Alice’s personal and professional life brings her to the United States, where she starts a family and New York-based studio with her husband, film producer Herbert Blaché. But their once-happy marriage ends in divorce, and business troubles bring Alice’s career to a premature close. Decades later, her role as a woman film pioneer has faded from memory: “The history of cinema has completely forgotten about me,” she tells Francis Lacassin.
Alice Guy’s story is an extraordinary one, and this biography is an exhaustive documentary source for information about her life. An appendix with a detailed timeline, bibliography and filmography, and 50 pages of biographical essays about historical figures depicted in the book makes this a valuable reference work for those interested in Alice Guy’s life and times.
As a casual reader, however, this book didn’t hook me. Catel’s elegant monochrome illustrations are versatile enough to capture both the domestic scenes of Alice’s personal life and the exciting variety of her film sets, but the story itself feels bogged down by the kitchen-sink detail of Bocquet’s script. A number of characters and episodes seem as if they’re present for the sake of completeness, giving the story a choppy, episodic quality. The result is a book that lacks a strong narrative arc, without a clear throughline of who Alice Guy was and what compelled her, creatively and personally, to succeed in this challenging new industry.
This book is recommended for larger graphic novel collections, particularly those that emphasize women’s history or media history. For those interested in learning about Guy’s remarkable life, it’s absolutely worth picking up, but general readers may not find it the most accessible entry point into her story.
Alice Guy: First Lady of Film By José-Louis Bocquet Art by Catel Muller SelfMadeHero, 2022 ISBN: 9781914224034
NFNT Age Recommendation: Adult (18+), Older Teen (16-18) Creator Representation: French, Character Representation: French,
Even before graphic novels took off, several publishers, notably Lerner and Capstone, featured graphic nonfiction produced in a similar vein to the series nonfiction that most librarians are familiar with. The series nonfiction in graphic format continue to be a staple for nonfiction collections, although there are more literary options, like the Science Comics series.
Lerner’s Graphic Universe imprint produces new series twice a year, in January and August, and they usually pick timely topics. The January 2022 series Medical Breakthroughs is no exception, with titles on vaccines, germs, antibiotics, and more. The particular title we’re looking at today is the history of incubators.
The information is collected briefly in 32 pages with a short framing story showing two White children and a White, male-presenting doctor looking at a miniscule infant in a modern incubator while the doctor explains what incubators are used for. The story then jumps back to the 1870s and the work of two French doctors who. while trying to raise France’s falling birth rates, were inspired by the incubators they saw used with birds’ eggs at the zoo.
The incubators these and other doctors developed were funded by the exhibition of the premature babies, culminating in a semi-permanent exhibit on Coney Island. By the time the exhibit closed in 1943, thousands of babies had been saved and incubators became standard equipment in hospitals. Incubators continued to be improved, with interest and funding reviving after the death of President Kennedy’s premature son and culminating in the invention of a rechargeable and affordable incubator called the Embrace Nest that would be accessible to all people, especially in developing countries. The story ends with a return to the premature infant at the beginning, now a healthy toddler with their older siblings and parents.
The artwork is not memorable, but it is neatly done, with carefully drawn images of the various machines, and people shown in the appropriate period clothing as the story moves through time. All but a few people in the background and some nurses are depicted as White, which is a drawback, as one of the points of Couney’s work (the doctor who established the “Infantorium” at Coney Island) was the acceptance of infants of all backgrounds in sharp contrast to the eugenics movement. Most panels show the doctors and occasional nurses moving through bland scenery and exchanging a few remarks while the narrative is carried on in descriptive paragraphs. The appeal to readers who want the story told primarily through art is limited, since, as in most series nonfiction graphic novels, the narrative is told primarily in prose or through multiple “talking heads.” There is enough detail in the art to show the change in time periods, from the 1870s to 2008, and some additional information is provided through the pictures, like a nurse feeding a premature infant through their nose or the doctors explaining what they are doing to spectators and anxious parents.
One title is listed as a source, and there is also a glossary, index, and brief list of information to explore further.
The length of these titles naturally limits the amount of information that can be included and these titles tend to be brief introductions, which will hopefully engage interest in exploring topics further. Like most series nonfiction, they are available only in paperback or expensive library binding, which can be prohibitive for smaller budgets. If you have to watch your pennies it can be difficult to justify an extensive outlay on nonfiction that may quickly become dated. However, this series primarily covers historical events and so should have a longer shelf-life. With an ever-increasing number of struggling readers as well as graphic novel fans, Medical Breakthroughs should be a solid purchase for most school and public libraries and a good choice to interest young readers in history and science.
Incubators: A Graphic History By Paige Polinsky Art by Josep Rural Lerner Graphic Universe, 2022 ISBN: 9781541581517
The cover of this collection of biographies shows a background of mathematical equations and a line-up of women with varying skin tones, dressed in clothing from an astronaut suit to historical gowns, but all with the same slim silhouette and of roughly the same height.
This sets the stage for a series of overviews of twenty women in the sciences, which manage to be largely similar, despite their different backgrounds and areas of study. The collection is oddly unbalanced, starting with approximately 20 pages on Marie Curie, giving a rapid overview of her life, relationship with Pierre and other romantic entanglements, and ending with her daughter Irene continuing her work. This is followed by several more contemporary scientists, with an overview of their lives and accomplishments in text accompanied by a thumbnail image and a single graphic panel showing them with other scientists in a lab or involved in their scientific work.
Several shorter comics, about ten pages each, profile Ada Lovelace, Hedy Lamarr, Rosalind Franklin, and Mae Jemison. Lovelace’s narrative is bracketed by a modern teacher introducing her to high school students and ends abruptly with her losing “everything” at gambling and then dying. Most of the narrative with Hedy Lamarr is given over to her personal life, including a full page on her husbands. Franklin’s narrative focuses heavily on her unsuccessful struggle for equality, emphasizing that she was most accepted and happy during her work in Paris. Mae Jemison’s story is upbeat, the only prejudice shown in her family huddling around a televised report of Martin Luther King’s death and a class of smiling white children playfully tossing a paper ball at her head. There are no sources cited or back matter. The longer comics all include what appear to be quotations from primary source material, but also fictional dialogue.
The art, although depicting a wide variety of women in different time periods, has a strong similarity. The women are all shown with the same slim figure and average height. Only Marie Curie is shown to age, with her lightening hair, stooped posture, and a few wrinkles. The backgrounds are also similar, with Curie and Franklin shown against tree-lined avenues in Paris and a few sepia-toned war scenes, Jemison in darkened, indoor areas until she blossoms in the sunny, outdoor spaces of California, and Lovelace in groups of indistinguishable people. It’s ironic that, despite the introduction claiming that the purpose of the book is to bring to light hitherto overlooked female scientists, the five women given the longest profiles are already well-known and their comics focus more on their personal lives than on their scientific achievements. Even Curie’s longer comic is taken up with images of her wedding and later romantic entanglements, while Lamarr’s is mostly a series of images of her in provocative period gowns and bathing suits, with a success of husbands, and later as a recluse in Florida. Her inventions outside of the frequency-hopping idea are not referenced, but her plastic surgery is. Rosalind Franklin is, ironically, erased from her own comic, which transitions from her work with DNA to showing the male scientists laughing about her and her ideas at a pub, and then to their awards, overlooking Franklin completely with a brief mention of her later work before her early death. The comic ends with the belated and posthumous recognition of her work, shown in plaques and a statue. Jemison is depicted in the most upbeat fashion, with an emphasis on her hard work and early achievements and ending with her inspiring girls at a science camp.
The aim of the book is worthy, but it is far from the only reference on the subject and it is poorly designed. The translation is rough, with frequent exclamations, choppy sentences, and the occasional typo. Readers interested in graphic interpretations of women in science will do better to explore Primates by Jim Ottaviani, selected Science Comics that emphasize the contributions of women, like Dinosaurs: Fossils and Feathers, or, for lighter fare, Corpse Talk from DK.
Women Discoverers: Top Women in Science By Marie Moinard Art by Christelle Pecout NBM, 2021 ISBN: 9781681122700
Publisher Age Rating: 12 years and up
NFNT Age Recommendation: Teen (13-16) Creator Representation: French Character Representation: African-American, American-Austrian, British, French
her to cozy up to her wealthier peers—and, ideally, marry one of them. But Jade is focused on her secret passion: serious weightlifting.
Birkenau approaches the subject with a surprising amount of levity and accessibility. The comic splits its time between the present (well, the present of 2020), in which the 95-year-old Kolinka re-visits the Auschwitz-Birkenau prison camp with a group of students, and the events of the past. Kolinka recounts her early life in France, her large family’s attempt to escape Nazi persecution, and most notably the experience of trying to survive in camp as she was being abused, humiliated, and dehumanized.
In mid-90s Paris, eighteen-year-old Nina is struggling to find her path. The daughter of a Black Muslim from Gambia and a Polish Jewish woman whose family narrowly escaped the Holocaust, Nina feels out of place almost everywhere: the university she attends, the parties thrown by fellow students, and definitely her ballet classes, where she is told “You’re a great dancer, but Sleeping Beauty is not Black.” When her ballet teacher suggests that she is not a good fit because “the corps de ballet must appear uniform,” Nina quits, feeling more adrift and rejected than ever. But when she discovers track and field – and a coach who says she has great potential as a runner—Nina is intrigued. She’s also intrigued by Jackson, a handsome runner on the team.
budding romantic relationships and her last years spent in Nohant, France, during the early nineteenth century.
“When you asked if you were bipolar, she was looking for a wolf, so she wasn’t going to find a fox.”
provincial family. She is also on a journey to revisit her roots and to handle her own growing, crippling anxiety and fears. While her family is delighted to see her, they do not actually pay any attention to her and her increasing vulnerability because they are busy with their own lives, issues, and family ties. Her family is complicated and entirely relatable and authentic to readers of this gentle slice-of-life graphic novel.
Vincent Van Gogh’s story has always been a complicated one, but the strength of his art and vision has always stood strong—as has his creative and emotional impact so many years after his death.
brothers and 
Even before graphic novels took off, several publishers, notably Lerner and Capstone, featured graphic nonfiction produced in a similar vein to the series nonfiction that most librarians are familiar with. The series nonfiction in graphic format continue to be a staple for nonfiction collections, although there are more literary options, like the Science Comics series.
The cover of this collection of biographies shows a background of mathematical equations and a line-up of women with varying skin tones, dressed in clothing from an astronaut suit to historical gowns, but all with the same slim silhouette and of roughly the same height.
