Garvey's Choice: The Graphic Novel [Hardcover]

Award-winning author Nikki Grimes’s beloved novel in verse Garvey’s Choice is now a graphic novel, imaginatively and dramatically illustrated by Little Shaq artist Theodore Taylor III. 

Garvey’s father has always wanted Garvey to be athletic, but Garvey is interested in astronomy, science fiction, reading—anything but sports. Feeling like a failure, he comforts himself with food. Garvey is kind, funny, smart, a loyal friend, and he is also overweight, teased by bullies, and lonely. When his only friend encourages him to join the school chorus, Garvey’s life changes. The chorus finds a new soloist in Garvey, and through chorus, Garvey finds a way to accept himself and a way to finally reach his distant father—by speaking the language of music instead of the language of sports.

Garvey’s Choice was a School Library Journal Best Book, a Kirkus Reviews Best Book, a Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award Honor Book, and a Paterson Prize for Books for Young People Honor Book. With Theodore Taylor III’s full-color illustrations, this graphic novel edition is enthralling and inspiring.School Library Journal Best Book of the Year

★  Some of Grimes’s original tanka poems have been adjusted, but the novel in verse adapts beautifully to the graphic novel format, and Taylor’s art emphasizes the imaginative, ­poignant, painful, and joyful aspects in turn. Starry night sky illustrations, with characters outlined in white, are striking. Taylor often shows Garvey regarding himself in a mirror, and readers can see how Garvey’s feelings about his appearance change throughout. This format will attract new readers to a poetic, powerful story of growth. Highly recommended. —lcî