Launching This Month! – Random House Graphic

 

Random House Graphic is launching this month with the release of The Runaway Princess by Johan Troïanowski.

This princess can’t resist the lure of adventure, but her parents aren’t quite on board in this fantastical graphic novel perfect for fans of Princess in Black and Phoebe and Her Unicorn! Robin? Robin? Robin?! Where are you? She couldn’t have gone far. . . . Princesses don’t run away to have their own adventures. Right? Princesses stay quietly and obediently at home. They would never want mermaids and swamps and pirates and getting kidnapped to be a part of their lives. Not this princess! Adventures await when Robin (bored of princess-ing all the time) embarks on the best adventure of her life—meeting friends along the way as she travels through the magical landscape of her country. But her parents aren’t so pleased—and they’re coming to find her and bring her back to the castle, no matter how she feels about it!

Johan Troïanowski was born in Lyon in 1985. He graduated from Beaux-arts de Toulon in 2003, then started a comics anthology called Brouillon. In 2006, he created and became president of the association Little Blue Bear and White Rabbit, which promotes graphic novels; he’s also an advocate for wordless comics. As well as making graphic novels, he writes and illustrates poetry for children and runs workshops around the country.

Follow Johan’s Amazon page here.

Meet Random House Graphic Publisher Director Gina Gagliano here.

 

 

Congratulations to Random House Graphic. I hope their authors will be frequent guests at The Children’s and Teens’ Book Connection.

Coming in September: The Umbrella Academy Volume 3: Hotel Oblivion by Gerard Way

With a new Netflix series, the award-winning graphic novels are back!

Gerard Way (My Chemical Romance, Doom Patrol) and Gabriel Ba (Two Brothers, Casanova) have earned accolades on separate projects, and finally return for the latest chapter in the bizarre lives of their former teen superhero team.

Faced with an increasing number of lunatics with superpowers eager to fight his wunderkind brood, Sir Reginald Hargreeves developed the ultimate solution . . .

But their past is coming back to hunt them. Collects issues #1-#7.

* Features an introduction by Eisner Award-winning creator Jeff Lemire!

Series: Umbrella Academy (Book 3)
Paperback: 200 pages
Publisher: Dark Horse Books (September 17, 2019)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1506711421
ISBN-13: 978-1506711423

You can pre-order at Amazon and Books-a-Million and other online retailers.

STORYSTORM 2019 Winner and The Giver Graphic Novel

 

Though I finished early this year, I am now an official STORYSTORM 2019 winner! I have 31 new ideas to turn into stories. I’m excited about several of these.

Browsing through my inbox today, I discovered that Lois Lowry’s The Giver was adapted into a graphic novel. Check out the cover!

 

The Giver is a modern classic and one of the most influential books of our time.

Now in graphic novel format, Lois Lowry’s Newbery Medal–winning classic story of a young boy discovering the dark secrets behind his seemingly ideal world is accompanied by renowned artist P. Craig Russell’s beautifully haunting illustrations. 

Placed on countless reading lists, translated into more than forty languages, and made into a feature film, The Giver is the first book in The Giver Quartet that also includes Gathering Blue, Messenger, and Son.

In this new graphic novel edition, readers experience the haunting story of twelve-year-old Jonas and his seemingly ideal, if colorless, world of conformity and contentment, through the brilliant art of P. Craig Russell that truly brings The Giver to life.

Witness Jonas’s assignment as the Receiver of Memory, watch as he begins to understand the dark secrets behind his fragile community, and follow the explosion of color into his world like never before.

Age Range: 12 and up
Grade Level: 7 – 9
Series: Giver Quartet (Book 1)
Hardcover: 192 pages
Publisher: HMH Books for Young Readers (February 5, 2019)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0544157885
ISBN-13: 978-0544157880

Purchase here!

Coming in November!: Cici’s Journal by Joris Chamblain & Aurelie Neyret

Cici dreams of being a novelist. Her favorite subject: people, especially adults. She’s been watching them and taking notes. Everybody has one special secret, Cici figures, and if you want to write about people, you need to understand what’s hiding inside them. But now she’s discovered something truly strange: an old man who disappears into the forest every Sunday with huge pots of paint in all sorts of colors. What is he up to? Why does he look so sad when he comes back?

In a graphic novel interwoven with journal notes, scrapbook pieces, and doodles, Cici assembles clues about the odd and wonderful people she’s uncovered, even as she struggles to understand the mundane: her family and friends.

Age Range: 8 – 12 years
Grade Level: 3 – 7
Hardcover: 160 pages
Publisher: First Second (November 7, 2017)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 162672248X
ISBN-13: 978-1626722484

 

Purchase here

New Release: Thornhill by Pam Smy

Parallel plotlines, one told in text and one in art, inform each other as a young girl unravels the mystery of a ghost next door.

Mary is an orphan at the Thornhill Institute for Children at the very moment that it’s closing down for good. But when a bully goes too far, Mary’s revenge will have a lasting effect on the bully, on Mary, and on Thornhill itself.

Years later, Ella moves to a new town where she has a perfect view of the dilapidated, abandoned Thornhill Institute. Determined to befriend the mysterious, evasive girl she sees there, Ella resolves to unravel Thornhill’s history and uncover its secrets.

Ella’s story is told through striking, bold art; Mary’s is told through diary entries. Each informs the other until the two eventually intersect to reveal the truth behind Thornhill’s shadowy past, once and for all. Strikingly told and masterfully illustrated, Pam Smy bends genres and expectations alike.

Age Range: 10 – 14 years
Grade Level: 5 – 9
Hardcover: 544 pages
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press (August 29, 2017)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 162672654X
ISBN-13: 978-1626726543
Purchase here

Pam Smy studied illustration at Cambridge School of Art, part of Anglia Ruskin University, where she now lectures part-time. Pam has illustrated books by Conan Doyle, Julia Donaldson, and Linda Newbury, as well as Bob Cattell’s Butter-Finger series for Frances Lincoln. She lives in Cambridge.