Yossel

Author: Joe Kubert

First line: I am going to die here.

Why you should read this book: A graphic novel comprised of brutal descriptions and stripped-down but powerful illustrations, this is a faithful but fictional documentation of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, nominated for several prestigious awards. Yossel is an alternate-reality version of the author, whose real-life family escaped Europe prior to the war, but Yossel's family stayed in Poland, and it is only his exceptional ability to draw figures in the American comic book style that sustains the boy through the horror of his experience. Compelled to illustrate the world as it is revealed to him even as he escapes into fantasies of dinosaurs, Vikings, and superheros, Yossel testifies to the inhumanity of Nazi brutality and the courage of the rebels in a book that does not end happily, but does end truthfully, as a testament to the human spirit.

Why you shouldn't read this book: Can't stomach any graphic terror right now.