Van Helsing’s Night Off, Mahler.
Near-wordless comics, perfect in timing and charming in drawing, worthy of the legacy of Sempe. Five stars.

Owly v.1: The Way Home and Bittersweet Summer, Runton.
Charming lil owl and lil worm. Rises above any cute animal comic you’ve ever seen. Four stars.

Bound, Napoli (Y).
It has been summarized as a Chinese version of Cinderella, but that doesn’t do it justice. Napoli captures the magic realism in all great folklore and fleshes it out with detail and character with an expert hand. Hurray again for Napoli. (It was before I was saving reviews, but her book Breath was similarly powerful. Unfortunately there was no way I could take it to a school, since there was a naked witchcraft orgy in it, too. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.) Four stars for love at first pun.

Yotsuba&!, Azuma
A very energetic and peculiar girl moves into a new neighborhood in Japan. I’m not a big manga reader anymore, but this one charmed the socks off me. I think the little girl is supposed to be bizarrely otherworldly odd, but she sure reminds me of a certain little girl I know. Three stars for high quality read backwards.

Daniel, Half-Human and the Good Nazi, Chotjewitz (Y)
In translation from the German, and it shows. Actually couldn’t finish this one, but I’m desperately looking for historical fiction that takes place outside of the US that is geared to High School students. Which turns out to be appalingly rare. Daniel wants to join Hitler Youth, then everything changes when he finds out his mother was Jewish. Good detail on the events leading to concentration camps that I hadn’t known about due to my horrible education in history. No rating due to not being able to finish it.

Kipling’s Choice, Spillebeen (Y)
In translation from Belgian French, and not too bad. The last moments of John Kipling’s life, and how they happened to be him dying of shrapnel damage in the first battle he got to in WWI, at the age of 18. Those reasons pretty heavily involve his famous father. Great detail on Belgium in WWI and Rudyard Kipling’s change of heart after losing his only son. Three stars.

Blowing my cover: My Life as a CIA Spy, Moran
The true story of a very smart and traveled woman who got into the CIA– great background on training and the internal politics (at least of a newbie), but after a while in the field, it got a bit boring. Which I think was her point, but then I didn’t really feel like reading the last few chapters. Two stars for detail.

The Diary of Pelly D, Adlington (Y)
Demolition worker clearing up the rubble of a bombed city on another world (colonized by humans) finds a diary of a former resident. Started off as nothing much but ended up being very powerful. Four stars for keeping me reading and sticking with me.

Cute Manifesto, Kochalka
Hm, not as great as American Elf, and his ideas don’t really measure up to his technique. I’m still a fan, though. One star.