School Library Journal has proudly partnered with We Are Kid Lit Collective to share and promote the group's annual summer reading recommendations. In the next couple of weeks, SLJ will publish individual posts featuring their recommendations for picture books, transitional books, middle grade, and young adult titles.

These three graphic novels published for adults with teen appeal will keep young adults engaged during the break. Plus, an eye-opening Black queer feminist statement is also featured in this We Are Kid Lit Collective Summer Reading list. 

Abirached, Zeina. I Remember Beirut. Graphic Universe, 2008. 
The author remembers her childhood in 1980s Beirut—finding new ways to go to school, her mother’s car riddled with bullets, and her brother collecting shrapnel. This graphic memoir recalls life in a war zone but also what it’s like just trying to be a child, living life. 

The Combahee River Collective Statement by Combahee River Collective, 1977.  
This self-published Black queer feminist statement acknowledges the existence of interlocking systems of oppression and the work to dismantle such racial, sexual, heterosexual, and class oppressions.

Liew, Sonny. The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye. Pantheon, 2016.
Truth may be stranger than fiction. What if the two become so intertwined it becomes impossible to tell where one ends and the other begins? Such is the case with this fictional graphic novel memoir, following “Singapore’s greatest comics artist” through a meta-history of the Malay Archipelago.

Sabaaneh, Mohammad. Power Born of Dreams. Street Noise Bks., 2021. 
When a bird lands on the prisoner’s window, the two become friends and exchange stories. Told by a nameless prisoner in a Palestinian cell, this graphic novel uses symbols and images to explore what it means to be in captivity.