Literacy

Recommended graphic novels

Starting or expanding a graphic novel collection? Below is a list of suitable titles for use in the classroom or school library.

Batman: Year one

The story of Gotham City's Dark Knight ... who he is and how he came to be, retold by comic master Frank Miller.

Genre: Superhero

Publisher: Titan Books

Ethel and Ernest

A graphic memoir of the author/artist's parents from their marriage in 1930 to their deaths within a few months of each other in 1971.

Genre: Real life

Publisher: Pantheon Books

Go Girl!

Young Lindsay Goldman has inherited super powers and has become a teenage superheroine sensation, to the despair of her retired mother.

Genre: Superhero

Publisher: Dark Horse Comics

Hamlet

In this manga, young Hamlet's grief turns to something far darker when the ghost of his recently deceased father appears to him.

Genre: Shakespeare, Adaptation

Publisher: SelfMadeHero

Hopeless Savages

Two former punks who grew up (but never grew out of the lifestyle) have a family of kids with names like Skank Zero and Arsenal Fierce.

Genre: Adventure, Real life, Comedy

Publisher: Oni Press

King Lear: Graphic Shakespeare Series

Shakespeare's classic story of kingship, honour, and bloody revenge, colourfully illustrated by Ian Pollack.

Genre: Shakespeare

Publisher: Can of Worms Enterprises Ltd

King

Celebrated black cartoonist Ho Che Anderson traces the life and career of civil rights leader Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., from his birth to his assassination.

Genre: Historical

Publisher: Fantagraphics

Macbeth

Shakespeare's classic play of deception, intrigue and murder is reinvented in the Japanese manga style.

Genre: Shakespeare

Publisher: Puffin books

Macbeth

Macbeth is available in three versions: with the original text, reproduced in modern English, or in a 'quick text' version.

Genre: Shakespeare

Publisher: Classical Comics

The Complete Maus: a Survivor's Tale

The Complete Maus explores Art Spiegelman's Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel about the Holocaust. It combines volumes I and II of Maus.

Genre: History

Publisher: Penguin

Kindaichi Case Files

Hajime Kindaichi is a teenage crime solver who uses ingenious deduction to debunk ghosts, curses, myths or folklore.

Genre: Manga

Publisher: Tokyopop

Thumbnail image of Raymond Chandler's Marlowe

Raymond Chandler's Marlowe: the Graphic Novel

A trio of graphic novels including The Pencil, Goldfish, and Trouble is my Business. These are the first adaptations of Chandler stories.

Genre: Adaptations

Publisher: ibooks

Romeo & Juliet

The story of young lovers torn apart by an ancient feud and brought down by misguided help and unlucky coincidences.

Genre: Shakespeare

Publisher: Timber Frame Publications

Romeo and Juliet

Shakespeare's most famous love story with a manga twist. Two lovers are caught up in a bitter feud between their Yakuza families.

Genre: Shakespeare, Adaptation

Publisher: SelfMadeHero

Runaways

When six young friends discover their parents are secretly super-powered villains, they run away from home and straight into the adventure of their lives.

Genre: Superhero

Publisher: Marvel Comics

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Superman: End of the Century

Superman and Lois Lane must save the world from the deranged and super-powerful son of the former Mrs. Lex Luthor.

Genre: Superhero

Publisher: DC Comics/Titan Books

Thumbnail image of The Best of Ray Bradbury

The Best of Ray Bradbury: the Graphic Novel

The world's best comic book artists have adapted Ray Bradbury's best stories in a series of different graphic novel formats.

Genre: Adaptation

Publisher: ibooks

The Tale of One Bad Rat

The beautiful and dramatic story of a talented teenage girl struggling to regain self-worth and freedom from an abusive childhood.

Genre: Real-life

Publisher: Titan Books

Thumbnail image of Ultimate Daredevil and Elektra

Ultimate Daredevil and Electra

Columbia University freshman Elektra Natchios is prompted down a path of violence and revenge after a series of malicious attacks on her friends.

Genre: Superhero

Publisher: Marvel Comics

Ultimate Spiderman

In a story retold for the twenty-first century, teenager Peter Parker is bitten by an experimental spider, and develops super powers as a result.

Genre: Superhero

Publisher: Marvel Comics

When the wind blows

A heartbreaking story about a nuclear attack on Britain from the viewpoint of a retired couple, Jim and Hilda Bloggs.

Genre: Science fiction

Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd