LibraryAware May 2025

New Arrivals!

Drawing Blood: Spilled Ink Volume 1
by David Avallone

Once upon a time, he and his brother birthed a worldwide phenomenon, self-publishing a crazy indie comic about crime fighting cat-girls out of their tiny apartment. Now... Books is hitting his forties (hard), the money all gone, artistic inspiration tapped out, beset on all sides... and trying to recover from his catastrophic encounter with the hit-and-run driver called "early success." Drawing Blood follows a cartoonist whose real life has become more absurd and action-packed than any comic book story he could dream up!

Dreamover
by Dani Diaz

Amber's a headstrong goofball with a temper. Nico's a shy, self-conscious emo boy. But they've been best friends since third grade, and she can't hide her feelings for him any longer. At the end of their eighth-grade beach trip, she confesses... and the feeling is mutual!...But once high school starts, life gets more complicated. Faced with early mornings, bullies, homework, and other stresses, Amber and Nico cling to each other, neglecting their friends. Soon, Amber starts to wish she and Nico could escape from it all.

Einstein in Kafkaland : How Albert Fell Down the Rabbit Hole and Came Up With the Universe
by Ken Krimstein

During the year that Prague was home to both Albert Einstein and Franz Kafka from 1911-1912, the trajectory of the two men's lives wove together in uncanny ways--as did their shared desire to tackle the world's biggest questions in Europe's strangest city. In stunning words and pictures, Einstein in Kafkaland reveals the untold story of how their worlds wove together in a cosmic battle for new kinds of truth. For Einstein, his lost year in Prague became a critical bridge set him on the path to what many consider the greatest scientific discovery of all time, his General Theory of Relativity. And for Kafka, this charmed year was a bridge to writing his first masterpiece, The Judgment. Based on diaries, lectures, letters, and papers from this period amid a planet electrifying itself into modernity, Einstein in Kafkaland brings to life the emergence of a new world where art and science come together in ways we still grapple with today.

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz's Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States: A Graphic Interpretation
by Paul Peart-Smith

In stunning full color and accessible text, a graphic adaptation of the American Book Award winning history of the United States as told from the perspective of Indigenous peoples.

A Pros and Cons List for Strong Feelings: A Graphic Memoir
by Will Betke-Brunswick

During Will Betke-Brunswick's sophomore year of college, their beloved mother, Elizabeth, is diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer. They only have ten more months together, which Will documents in evocative two-color illustrations. But as we follow Will and their mom through chemo and hospital visits, their time together is buoyed by laughter, jigsaw puzzles, modern art, and vegan BLTs. In a delightful twist, Will portrays their family as penguins, and their friends are cast as a menagerie of birds. In between therapy and bedside chats, they navigate uniquely human challenges, as Will prepares for math exams, comes out as genderqueer, and negotiates familial tension. A Pros and Cons List for Strong Feelings is an act of loving others and loving oneself, offering a story of coming-of-age, illness, death, and life that announces the arrival of a talented storyteller in Will Betke-Brunswick. At its heart, Will's story is a celebration of a mother-child relationship filled with unconditional devotion,humor, care, and openness.

The Mythology Class: Where Philippine Legends Become Reality
by Arnold Arre

This entertaining graphic novel fuses Philippine myth and magic with contemporary action. Summoned to a secret meeting by the mysterious Madame Enkanta, Nicole finds herself face to face with living creatures from Philippine mythology and folklore that she never imagined existed in real-life. Tikblangs, kapres and a range of engkantos-fantasy figures from her grandfather's bedtime stories-challenge her previously-held notions of reality! Nicole Lacson embarks on a quest into a realm of myth and magic, where she fights alongside the heroes of her childhood against an ancient evil. Navigating the streets of metro Manila, a ragtag crew of college students takes an unexpected turn into a fascinating realm of daring deeds and dark menace.

The Children of Bathala : A Mythology Class Reunion
by Arnold Arre

It's been two decades since the former classmates first met, and the ensuing years have brought their share of changes. Kubin's strength is weakening with each passing day; Lane's telepathy is gone; Rey and Misha are nowhere to be found; and the bonds that once held them together are slowly crumbling under their misfortune. Thrown into the mix is Nicole and Kubin's daughter, Marilag, who has grown distant from her. To add to the problems, doubts about Enkanta's true purpose are mounting. Nicole, once the heart of the group, now senses a dark spell settling over them, her young daughter included. What the former classmates don't realize is that a new band of visitors is about to arrive from a magical realm. Will these visitors provide a portal to an enchanting new world or usher in a new age of evil? And will the classmates still be up to the challenge?

Movements and moments
by Sonja Eismann

Equally striking accounts from Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, India, Nepal, Peru and Thailand weave a tapestry of trauma and triumph, shedding light on not-too-distant histories otherwise overlooked. Indigenous Peoples all over the world have always had to stand their ground in the face of colonialism. While the details may differ, what these stories have in common is their commitment to resistance in a world that puts profit before respect, and western notions of progress before their own. Movements and Moments is an introductory glimpse into how Indigenous Peoples tell these stories in their own words. From Southeast Asia to South America, vibrant communities must grapple with colonial realities to assert ownership over their lands and traditions.

The Talk
by Darrin Bell

Darrin Bell offers a deeply personal meditation on the 'the talk' parents must have with Black children about racism and the brutality that often accompanies it, a ritual attempt to keep kids safe and prepare them for a world that--to paraphrase Toni Morrison--doesnot love them... Bell examines how 'the talk' has shaped nearly every moment of his life into adulthood and fatherhood.

New Manga!

Tokyo These Days. 1
by Taiyåo Matsumoto

After 30 years as a manga editor, Kazuo Shiozawa suddenly quits. Although he feels early retirement is the only way to atone for his failures as an editor, the manga world isn't done with him. On his final day as an editor, Shiozawa takes a train he's ridden hundreds of times to impart some last advice to a manga creator whose work he used to edit. Later, he is drawn to return to a bookshop at the request of a junior editor who wants his help dealing with an incorrigible manga creator who used to be edited by Shiozawa and now refuses to work with anyone else. For Shiozawa, Tokyo These Days is full of memory and is cocooned in the inescapable bonds among manga creators, their editors, art, and life itself.

Tokyo These Days. 2
by Taiyåo Matsumoto

Shiozawa forges ahead with an independently published manga project. But the manga creators around him are crumbling into chaos--Chosaku drinks himself into ever less productivity over worries about his career and family, a longtime creator can't discern the difference between fiction and fantasy, and Aoki disappears rather than face the deadlines for his new hit series. Sometimes, the simple pleasure of an apple is worth more than all the fame and toil of making manga.

Tokyo These Days. 3
by Taiyåo Matsumoto

Believing in the future of manga while never forgetting its past, Shiozawa accompanies manga creators once again through their agony to create an ultimate manga project. Is there ever joy in creation?

Nejishiki
by Yoshiharu Tsuge

Nejishiki represents the pinnacle of avant-garde manga. Originally published in the legendary alt-manga magazine Garo in 1968, the title story marks cult cartoonist Yoshiharu Tsuge's radical turn to dreams, surrealism, and existential horror. Tsuge's literary landscapes were once lush and inviting; now they are shadowy and haunted. His cheery travelers have lost their innocence; they have been replaced by alienated wanderers pursued by menacing doppelgangers, unsavory sexual impulses, and omens of death. The psychologically and erotically charged stories collected here revolutionized manga, galvanized Japanese comics criticism, and stand as some of the strangest fruits of the countercultural discontent of the late '60s. They remain just as shocking and vivid today.

New on Hoopla!

The Night Eaters 3 : Their Kingdom Come
by Marjorie Liu

What happens when you and your twin accidentally trigger the apocalypse while trying to defend your family from an evil warlock? Well, Milly and Billy are about to find out. Los Angeles has been decimated by the Ting twins and the hole they've accidentally torn in the fabric of the universe. But that's not all... across the world things are... changing. The long-separated realities of Earth and the magical world have collided with disastrous results. Milly and Billy are desperate to set things straight, but Keon and Ipo know better-some things can't be undone. The final war for the fate of our world has begun.

Rat City 1
by Erica Schultz

Erica Schultz teams up with artist Zé Carlos to send readers on a visually stunning ride through a dystopian futurescape in the new Spawn Universe series Rat City. In a post-war future, Peter Cairn stands as a unique individual, bearing the weight of his past as an ex-soldier and an amputee, becomes a Hellspawn thanks to nanites in his prosthetic legs influenced by Al Simmons' necroplasmic detonation causing a ripple effect not only across space but also through time. Labeled a "Deviant" by the corporation that created him, Peter confronts his creators as his powers grow, making himself a prime target.

I Was a Fashion School Serial Killer
by Doug Wagner

Rennie Bethary has just been accepted into New York City's most prestigious fashion school. Her designs are daring, edgy, and singular…and made of human flesh. Did we forget to mention Rennie is a serial killer who simply wants to be a fashion designer instead? Stupid, pesky, murderous urges!

Full of Myself : A Graphic Memoir About Body Image
by Siobhán Gallagher

Author and illustrator Siobhán Gallagher's humorous and heartfelt graphic memoir details her journey from being anxious and unhappy to learning to love herself as she is.

Golden Rage : Mother Knows Best
by Chrissy Williams

In a world where old and infertile women are deemed useless to society and abandoned on an island, Golden Rage documents their golden years of making friends, baking dessert, and fighting to the death. Mother Knowns Best builds on the first Golden Rage miniseries for a glorious new adventure.

Secrets of a Lost Diary
by Santiago Cohen

When her dementia-stricken grandmother Babi dies, 15-year-old Lucy -sensitive and sentimental, with a punky haircut and ears full of piercings- is left reeling and unmoored. That is, until a secret diary locked away in a hidden compartment drops out from Babi's desk. What follows is a living epistolary, reflecting grandmother and granddaughter's struggles with belonging. Babi, caught between her Polish-Jewish past and Mexican home, both reckoning with lesbian identity and the need to conceal it. Lucy comes to find they shared far more than a birthday. A moving reflection on love, grief, and connection across generations.

Finding the Light : A Mother's Journey from Trauma to Healing
by Marian Henley

This poignant graphic memoir describes the most difficult conversation between a mother and her son - the one about the two rapes she experienced as a young woman. It's something she always knew she would share with her son, but the process of doing so is harder - and more freeing - than she could have imagined. This difficult but beautiful story chronicles how she overcame trauma and violence to find love and healing as a mother. Drawing on her decades as a professional cartoonist, Henley's elegant black ink illustrations, trademark humor, and witty writing style shine through even in the darkest moments and tell a story of survivorship, parenting, and hope.