Some Great Graphic Novels For Catholic Kids

After criticizing FairyTails and other bad graphic novels in a recent post, I have now dug up some good quality books for you - as promised. I will keep looking for more.

My favorite first:

The Shadow of His Wings: A Graphic Biography by Max Temesou.

I was elated to find a graphic novel version of one of our family’s favorite autobiographies. Father Gereon Goldman was a Franciscan seminarian in Germany, when the Nazis drafted him and his fellow students into the SS. His adventures as an undercover priest in SS uniform are much stranger than fiction. On returning to his home town after the war, he finds that a nun from a local convent had been fervently praying for his protection throughout the war. The original biography is exciting stuff for older teens, as suspenseful as any spy novel. The graphic novel makes this story accessible to younger readers.

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Father Augustus Tolton: The First Recognized Black Priest In America by Corinna and Maria Laughlin, LTP 2015.

A beautifully illustrated story of the first black American priest who had to go to Rome to be ordained and was sent back to his southern hometown to suffer from racism and envy by his white fellow priests. Father Tolton’s cause has been submitted for canonization. This book is only available from Liturgy Training Press. The book title links to their site.

Here is a little treasure I found at the bookstore of Holy Theophany Monastery right down the road from our church. ‘Gerontikon’ is a Greek term meaning ‘Book of Elders’. Greek cartoonist and writer Christos Gousidis is retelling ancient anecdotes of wisdom by desert monks which have been handed down from the early days of Christianity. The illustrations are lovely:

Stories From the Gerontikon by Christos Gousidis, New Rome Press

Next is a great little comic book originally published by Franciscan Marytown Press but now out of print. If you are wealthy, you can purchase a used copy for $200 on amazon.com. If you belong to the tribe of reuse-your- ziplock-baggers you may want to try other sources from our Finding Books page. If you have time on your hands, you could write to Marytown Press and ask them to republish:

Soldier of God: The Gripping Story of Maximilian Kolbe by Ray Chatton, 1982.

Whenever I think: “‘I wish someone would write a …”, Regina Doman seems to have anticipated my idea. First she wrote her fairy tale series, fascinating novels of young Catholics living in our country in our time dealing with present day teen problems. Now I find that she has published two Catholic graphic novels:

Habemus Papam- Pope Benedict XVI by Regina Doman, 2013.