Boy vs. Shark by Paul Gilligan. While I personally enjoyed this story for its look back to the summer of 1975 when the movie Jaws happily terrorized every young swimmer, it’s also a timeless tale of growing up and navigating peer pressure and changing friendships. I appreciated seeing this sort of story being written with a boy main character.

The Monster and the Maze (Monkey King and the World of Myths) by Maple Lam. This fun and engaging adventure seamlessly wove together Chinese and Greek mythology, as Sun Wukong the Monkey King traveled to Crete to battle/befriend the Minotaur. I’m happy that Amazon lists book 2 of this series to be released in August.

Lies My Teacher Told Me: A Graphic Adaptation by James W. Loewen, adapted and illustrated by Nate Powell. James Loewen’s book, originally published in 1995, will undoubtedly reach a new audience with this graphic version. While this appears to be a young adult book, all Americans would do well to read it and learn how wrong history textbooks are, skewing our knowledge of our country in a way that affects our decisions to this day. If I may sneak in a sixth favorite, I will say that The Mythmakers: The Remarkable Fellowship of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien by John Hendrix was a close runner-up for my favorite young adult nonfiction graphic novel.

Band Camp #1: All Together Now! by Brian “Smitty” Smith. On a lighter note, I thoroughly enjoyed this story of a bunch of underdog musical instruments enjoying camp together. While the ending felt a little abrupt, you can now find out what happens next in book 2, released in September.

Lunar New Year Love Story by Gene Luen Yang, illustrated by LeUyen Pham. I started the new year by moving out of my middle grade fiction comfort zone to read this well-written, beautifully illustrated young adult graphic novel by an award-winning author-illustrator team. The introduction to lion dancing helped me appreciate another (yikes, a seventh favorite?) graphic novel, Lion Dancers by Cai Tse, when I read it later this year.