My students love graphic novels, and my one small shelf cannot keep up with the demand. I’m excited to have several more to introduce after Christmas break.  One of the things I am enjoying as I explore more graphic novels is the great variety of stories that are told through this format.

Pandemonium (Scholastic graphix 2012) by Chris Wooding and Cassandra Diaz

The world of Pandemonium is dark and full of secrets.  Seifer Tombchewer is a hero in his small mountain village for playing skullball, but he longs to see what lies beyond.  One day he gets his wish, but it is not at all what he expected.  He has been kidnapped because he looks just like Prince Talon.  Now he is to take the prince’s place in order to fool the kingdom until the real prince can be found again.  He knows nothing of royalty, but begins to make a better prince than the one who disappeared.  I enjoyed this dark and fantastical twist on a tale of mistaken identity, but there are many more questions to be answered.  Where is the missing prince?  How did the royal advisors know of Seifer’s existence in a village that has forgotten the wider world?  Just what other secrets lie in Seifer’s past that even he doesn’t know?  Not only is this gem a dark fantasy, it rocks with British humor!

Resistance:  Book 1 by Carla Jablonski and Leland Purvis (First Second 2010)

Travel through history to when World War II raged across the globe and land in France, where part of the citizens support the occupying Germans, and where many of them fight against the occupation.  It is hard for Paul and his sisters to know who they can trust, but when their friend Henri’s parents are rounded up by the Nazis for being Jewish, they must decide which side they will take.  Their first action is to hide their friend Henri, but soon they find themselves delivering messages for the Resistance as well trying to reunite Henri with his parents.  I can’t imagine living in an occupied country and having to make the decisions faced by people such as Paul and his family.  I hope I never have to learn.

Baltimore: The Plague Ships (Dark Horse Books 2010) by Mike Mignola, Christopher Golden, Ben Stenbeck

Horror is not my favorite genre.  (The blood and gore and general scariness give me nightmares), but I see students who are horror fans devouring this graphic novel.  Lord Baltimre is fighting the vampires, but he is cursed and downright creepy himself.  The vampires definitely do not sparkle.  They and the other creatures of the plague are dark and deadly and horrifically ugly as they creep out of shadows and sunken wrecks.  Throw in a superstitious witch and her beautiful but stubborn granddaughter, and the sense of foreboding grows.  The dark illustrations with lots of black and red enhance the feeling of fear throughout the story.  It is not for the faint of heart.  Who is going to stay up with me and my nightmares tonight?