Graphic Novels
Alpha: Abidjan to Paris
Alpha's wife and son left Côte d'Ivoire months ago to join his sister-in-law in Paris, but Alpha has heard nothing from them since. With a visa, Alpha's journey to reunite with his family would take a matter of hours. Without one, he is adrift for over a year, encountering human traffickers in the desert, refugee camps in northern Africa, overcrowded boats carrying migrants between the Canary Islands and Europe's southern coast, and an unforgettable cast of fellow travelers lost and found along the way. Throughout, Alpha stays the course, carrying his loved ones' photograph close to his heart as he makes his perilous trek across continents.
The Arrival
In a heartbreaking parting, a man gives his wife and daughter a last kiss and boards a steamship. He's embarking on the most difficult journey he's leaving home to build a better future for his family. In this wordless graphic novel, Shaun Tan captures the immigrant experience through clear, mesmerizing images. The reader enters a strange new world, participating in the main character's isolation and ultimately his joy.
Zenobia
Zenobia was once a great warrior queen of Syria whose reign reached from Egypt to Turkey. When things feel overwhelming for Amina, her mother reminds her to think of Zenobia and be strong. Amina is a Syrian girl caught up in a war that reaches her village. To escape the war she boards a small boat crammed with other refugees. The boat is rickety and the turbulent seas send Amina overboard. In the dark water Amina remembers playing hide and seek with her mother and the journey she had to undertake with her uncle to escape. And she thinks of the brave warrior Zenobia.
The Best We Could Do: an Illustrated Memoir
Exploring the anguish of immigration and the lasting effects that displacement has on a child and her family, Bui documents the story of her family's daring escape after the fall of South Vietnam in the 1970s, and the difficulties they faced building new lives for themselves. At the heart of Bui's story is a universal struggle: While adjusting to life as a first-time mother, she ultimately discovers what it means to be a parent--the endless sacrifices, the unnoticed gestures, and the depths of unspoken love. Despite how impossible it seems to take on the simultaneous roles of both parent and child, Bui pushes through. With haunting, poetic writing and breathtaking art, she examines the strength of family, the importance of identity, and the meaning of home.
Drawn to Berlin: comic workshops in refugee shelters and other stories from a new Europe
Her students draw images of tragic violence and careful optimism: rafts and tanks, flowers and the Eiffel Tower. In her eight years in Germany, Fitzgerald experiences the highs of the creatively hopeful, along with the deep depression of the disillusioned, all while waiting to stumble onto her own glory like the great Modernists before her. In the gigantic plastic bubble that is the refugee center, worlds collide and echo, and her drawings are compassionate and unflinchingly intimate, perfectly visualizing the fantasy of her Bohemia crumbling in a globalized city. It's about what she finds when helps lost people.
The Unwanted: Stories of the Syrian Refugees
The Unwanted is an important, timely, and eye-opening exploration of the ongoing Syrian refugee crisis, exposing the harsh realities of living in, and trying to escape, a war zone. Starting in 2011, refugees flood out of war-torn Syria in Exodus-like proportions. The surprising flood of victims overwhelms neighboring countries, and chaos follows. Resentment in host nations heightens as disruption and the cost of aid grows. By 2017, many want to turn their backs on the victims. The refugees are the unwanted. Don Brown depicts moments of both heartbreaking horror and hope in the ongoing Syrian refugee crisis. Shining a light on the stories of the survivors,The Unwantedis a testament to the courage and resilience of the refugees and a call to action for all those who read.
