Sunday, December 16, 2007

YALSA 2007 Top Ten Great Graphic Novels for Teens

Every year since 2007 Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) section of the American Library Association (ALA) has created both a long list and a top ten list of "great graphic novels for teens". You can see all the lists here. Previously they had included some graphic novels on their "best books for young adults" lists.

I was recently invited to give a guest lecture on the history of comics and graphic novels for children and young adults, and upon looking at these lists realized that I had read less than half of the book on the top ten lists (and hadn't even heard of others!). As a so called "expert" on graphic novels in libraries I didn't really think that this was appropriate, and decided to read as many of the volumes that I hadn't read as possible.

I'll be reviewing them as I read (or reread) them, and this page will eventually contain links to all the books from 2007. Here's the full list of nominations from 2007, and the top ten list. They occasionally have weird formatting or credits.

Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E. (Volume 1) by Warren Ellis and Stuart Immonen. 

Sloth by Gilbert Hernandez.  

Castle Waiting (Volume 1) by Linda Medley.  

Identity Crisis by Brad Meltzer and Rags Morales. 

Death Note (Volumes 1-3) by Tsugumi Ohba and Takeshi Obata. 

Runaways (Volumes 4-6) by Brian K. Vaughan and Adrian Alphona. 

Pride of Baghdad by Brian K. Vaughan and Niko Henrichon.

Death, Jr by Gary Whitta and Ted Naifeh.

Demo (Volume 1) by Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan.

American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang.