Graphic Novels for the Global Classroom
One of the things my global fellowships have taught me is the importance of an individual's story in the broader context of a culture, society or community. Of knowing that the individual story is one of many voices to be heard. Finding places to seek out and hear those stories of people who have led different lives from ourselves as an act of simply hearing an act that builds empathy and lets us know we are sharing this human experience.
No one knows the power of this more than Chiamanda Ngozi Adichi as she shares in her TEDTalk “The Danger of a Single Story.” If you have never watched this talk, please check it out as Adichi explores how only knowing a single story of a person can lead to prejudice, misunderstanding, and incomplete assumptions. Acknowledging the layers of each of our stories is an imperative part of education, as a student is more fully able to engage in their learning when they feel a sense of understanding and belonging. But how do we teach our students to look for these other stories? How do we introduce them to the idea that what they have heard or think they know may only be a part of a much more complicated story?
One way I think we can begin some of these conversations in the classroom, or even for our own learning, is through one of my favorite book medias: graphic novels! Their combination of words and images can tell a story in a way that the singular components cannot. The images go beyond simply illustrating the text, they can bring to life settings and cultural touchstones students may be unfamiliar with. They can make complex emotions more accessible and tangible. I have long loved graphic novel as a storytelling form, and love them even more so now as more and more are being published that can help us find and hear stories that are different from our own.
So I have gathered some of my favorite graphic novels that share a voice and a story that will help us stray away from the danger of a single story. By no means is this list exhaustive, and I’m always excited to learn about new graphic novels not listed here, so share your suggestions! I've tried to divide the content into a couple of different categories so you can find the right one for you and your class. Each of these graphic novels could be a standalone read, or wrapped into bigger lessons and units about central themes, time periods, or locations. With each, students should think about what is the story being told, who is telling it, and what can we learn from it. I’d love to hear how you use them in your classroom! Or what you think of them personally!
Map of Global Graphic Novels
If you’d like a more visual perspective of where these graphic novels take place, check out our interactive map! Click on any pin to see what graphic novel story takes place in that location. Feel free to add comments about the book if you’ve read it or used it in class.
Graphic Novels for the Global Classroom Map
How Can You Use This in Class?
Well, that’s up to you, Teach! In all seriousness, it really depends on your students, your grade, your curriculum, and your district. You know your students best. Should they read small snippets of multiple stories? Should they do a deep dive into an entire book through a class read aloud? Can you compare key components in several different stories? Can any of these graphic novels dovetail into one of your pre-existing units? Sometimes that’s the best way to bring new material into an established class. Use student interest in manga and anime to learn about the experiences of people around the world and throughout time.
I’m still working on how best to incorporate graphic novels into my high school classes. Graphic novels have been an interest of mine for some time, and I'm trying to find ways to share them with students that are meaningful, impactful, and intentional. Currently I keep a shelf of them in my room, and will pull a particular book out for a student/s when applicable in class. I’m also currently designing a lesson for a small one-sheet memoir with each kid, walking through a personalized moment of their life.
IMMIGRATION, REFUGEE, NEW LIVES
Our Stories Carried Us Here:
Various Countries
A Graphic Novel Anthology of stories gathered by the Green Card Voices project. I was given this book during our NEAF Global Learning Fellowship and it was the catalyst to make this list!
I cannot recommend any of Green Card Voices books or products enough.
Each story compellingly details a variety of experiences the individual immigrant or refugee had, highlighting differences between stories that too often are lumped together or not given an opportunity to be heard. Each storyteller was paired with an illustrator from a similar linguistic and cultural heritage. The thoughtfulness of the matches shines through, as every panel authentically conveys the narrators’ poignant and emotional memories, highlighting the beauty of their homelands and the cultures they still identify with. The narratives show the struggles and triumphs of acclimating to a new language, culture, and worldview as well as dealing with obstacles like racism and microaggressions. Stories here include voices from Somalia, Yemen, Myanmar, Jamaica, Guatemala, Chad, Kazakhstan, Mexico, and more. If you only get one book on this list, start here. Also, make sure to check out Green Card Voices and the powerful work they do. Their other books of first hand stories of immigration put individual faces where only generalities may have existed before.
When Stars Are Scattered, Omar Mohamded & Victoria Jamieson & Omar Geddy
Kenya
A beautiful story of a pair of Somalian brothers relocated in a refugee camp in Kenya. The book explores the trauma and uncertainty of life as a refugee, as well as the faith, love, and support that
people find to get through it. It also focuses on the importance of education and the difficulties of obtaining it.
Family Style, Thien Pham
Vietnam, Thailand, USA
A family's refugee and immigration story told through connections made to important foods in each location. From traditional foods in Vietnam and Thailand to french fries and chips in America, it’s a culinary journey through years and countries.
The Best We Could Do, Thi Bui
Vietnam, USA
Amazon wraps this one up best: “This beautifully illustrated and emotional story is an evocative 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.” And it is as beautiful as it is devastating, with delicately shaded images that bring the story to life. Bonus: Thi Bui also writes the forward for another book on our list: Our Stories Carried Us Here.
The Unwanted, Don Brown
Syria, Germany
A collection of moments and memories of the Syrian refugee crisis starting in 2011. What happens when once welcoming countries become less so? This book includes snippets of many stories rather than following a single protagonist, but the reader understands that each individual story is one of many just like it.
CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING / CURRENT EVENTS
Women Life Freedom, Marjane Satrapi
Iran
Her first graphic novel since Persepolis, Satrapi is back with more voices from Iran. A collaboration of over 20 activists, artists, journalists, and academics working together to depict the historic uprising, in solidarity with the Iranian people and in defense of feminism. Starting with the Mahsa Amini, was arrested by the morality police for not wearing her headscarf, and follows the protests that occurred after her death. A powerful uprising of voices.
Voices That Count, Various Authors
Spain
An anthology that “highlights and uplifts women’s voices, collecting their stories of life, love, and empowerment. Interacting with everything from the realities of gender imbalance in the workplace—through a gender-flipped lens—to toxic beauty standards taking a toll on the body image of young girls, VOICES THAT COUNT gives women a space to recount their struggles and triumphs.”- Amazon
What I love about this book is the variety of voices both in storytelling and illustration. Each story is a standalone, but together this provides a view of what women in Spain are concerned about.
Red: A Haida Manga, Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas
Canada
I cannot tell you enough just how much I adore this manga. Each page is a piece of a giant artwork, that when seen together creates a traditional Haida design. The illustrations are gorgeous, each painted with bold colors to match the equally bold story. It’s a traditional Haida tale of revenge and how it can become a destructive obsession. I was able to see the paintings that became this book on display at the University of British Columbia’s Museum of Anthropology, and they were breathtaking in person.
Kusama, Elisa Macellari
Japan
The story of one of Japan’s most famous and treasured contemporary artists: Yayoi Kusama. From a difficult childhood in Japan, a rough entry into the artworld in NYC, and a triumphant return to her home country, this book chronicles the life, art, and mental health struggles of the nearly 100 yr old artist. You may not be familiar with her art yet, but it's polka dots, infinity rooms, and giant pumpkins will draw you in, and her poetry and early pieces will keep you fascinated.
Persepolis 1 & 2, Marjane Satrapi
Iran
Persepolis opened a door for me that I didn’t even know was closed in the first place. Before reading this book during my college years I didn’t realize just how little I knew about the cultural revolutions of the Middle East. Persepolis is an autobiographical story told over two volumes of Satrapi’s childhood in Iran, her early adult life in Austria, and her return to Iran during and after the Islamic Revolution. After living in Europe for a number of years, her return finds Iran a vastly different place from the one she left. Heads up, this is often on library’s most challenged books list due to language and content.
Diaries of War: Ukraine and Russia, Nora Krug
Ukraine, Russia
A side-by-side account of the first year of the war between Russia and Ukraine beginning in 2022. The left side is the story of, while the right side is the counterpoint. Told with journalistic persistence, this is a record of what is happening in each place through words and images. I find the side-by-side first fascinating, as we see what is happening in two sides of a conflict at the same time.
HISTORICAL
Maus: A Survivor’s Tale, Art Spiegelman
Germany
The first graphic novel I ever picked up was Maus, tucked into the history section of my school library in the late 90’s while I was looking for a book for a class project. Instead of doing my research that day, I skipped classes (something my rule following self NEVER did), and read a survivor’s tale of the Holocaust told by anthropomorphized mice and cats. And I cried. And realized just how powerful a medium graphic novels can be for talking about the hard stuff.
Maus, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, details Speigelman’s relationship with his father, a holocaust survivor. We see his father’s story play out in the years leading up to and through WWII.
Boxers and Saints: Gene Luen Yang
China
This two volume set tells the story of the two sides of the Boxer Rebellion in Chinese history. Each book features a different viewpoint from a protagonist deep in the middle of the conflict. The first volume is told through the eyes of a peasant boy whose village is mistreated by missionaries and leads him to join a rebellion. The second follows the life of a small town girl who finds a family in the missionaries who take over her village. Gene Luen Yang always creates entertaining and informative graphic novels (see American Born Chinese and Avatar series), so this is a must read.
March 1-3, John Lewis, Andrew Aydin
United States
They Called Us Enemy, George Takei
United States
While this is also set in the United States, it is the autobiography of Takei and his family as they are sent to an internment camp simply for being Japanese-American during WWII. Takei's firsthand account of those years behind barbed wire, the joys and terrors of growing up under legalized racism, his mother's hard choices, his father's faith in democracy, and the way those experiences planted the seeds for his astonishing future.
We Served the People, Emei Burrell
Southern China
As part of Chairman Mao’s Great Leap Forward, thousands of secondary school and college age students were sent to do work stints on farms in rural China. This is the story of the author’s mother’s year as a rusticated youth working as one of the only female truck drivers on a large farm in southern China. Beautifully drawn pages highlight her mother’s strong character during this time of political upheaval.
The Waiting, Keum Suk Gendry-Kim (Author), Janet Hong (Translator)
North and South Korea
What happens when families are on different sides of a border that closes permanently? Follow the author’s mother as she flees North Korea after the fall of Japan. And her struggle to reunite with her husband and son she became separated with as she fled.
OTHER
Zodiac, Ai Weiwei
Beijing
Ai Weiwei, artist and activist, tells his story of living in exile during China’s Cultural Revolution as well as various episodes in his long and varied career. Each story is structured around a conversation about a Chinese zodiac sign. Weiwei ties the characteristics of each zodiac and Chinese folklore with stories of his life, family, and career. This is a great way to get some snippets of Ai Weiwei’s life
Shujaa Stories, Various Authors
Kenya
Shujaa is Swahili for brave or corageous, and each of the charaters featured in this series of comics designed to bring some of Kanya's filk and cultural heroes are jus that. Shujaa Stories is produced through comics, animations, and installations with the goal of giving life to African stories produced within the continent.
Green Card Voices
Educators and artists across the country and world have created an extensive collection of knowledge and resources designed to help build communities that welcome and celebrate our immigrant students. One key resource is the Green Card Voices project, and their model of sharing student voices and stories. Their non-profit organization is dedicated to building inclusive and integrated communities between immigrants and their neighbors through multimedia storytelling. https://www.greencardvoices.org/
Enjoy your reading, and let me know of other titles I should check out!
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