Looking for the best graphic novel adaptations for teens and kids? Here are some great graphic novels for classroom read alouds or for students to read. These graphic novel adaptations of classics, popular novels, and popular TV shows and movies. Ideas for elementary, middle and high school teachers and librarians!
If you’re a member of the Picture Book Brain Trust Community, you already have access to EVERY lesson plan and activity for these books! Just click on the Lesson Plans button in the menu!
Graphic Novel Adaptations
The Crossover Graphic Novel
“With a bolt of lightning on my kicks . . . The court is SIZZLING. My sweat is DRIZZLING. Stop all that quivering. ’Cuz tonight I’m delivering,” raps twelve-year-old Josh Bell. Thanks to their dad, he and his twin brother, Jordan, are kings on the court. But Josh has more than basketball in his blood—he’s got mad beats, too, which help him find his rhythm when it’s all on the line.
Anne of Green Gables
When Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert decide to adopt an orphan who can help manage their family farm, they have no idea what delightful trouble awaits them. With flame-red hair and an unstoppable imagination, 11-year-old Anne Shirley takes Green Gables by storm.
Anne’s misadventures bring a little romance to the lives of everyone she meets: her bosom friend, Diana Barry; the town gossip, Mrs. Lynde; and that infuriating tease, Gilbert Blythe. From triumphs and thrills to the depths of despair, Anne turns each everyday moment into something extraordinary.
To Kill a Mockingbird
A haunting portrait of race and class, innocence and injustice, hypocrisy and heroism, tradition and transformation in the Deep South of the 1930s, Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird remains as important today as it was upon its initial publication in 1960, during the turbulent years of the Civil Rights movement.
Now, this most beloved and acclaimed novel is reborn for a new age as a gorgeous graphic novel. Scout, Jem, Boo Radley, Atticus Finch, and the small town of Maycomb, Alabama, are all captured in vivid and moving illustrations by artist Fred Fordham.
Anne Frank’s Diary
An amazing graphic novel adaptation of the classic tale of a young girl: Anne Frank.
Between Shades of Gray
June, 1941. A knock comes at the door and the life of fifteen-year-old Lina Vilkas changes forever. She’s arrested by the Soviet secret police and deported from Lithuania to Siberia with her mother and younger brother. The conditions are horrific and Lina must fight for her life and for the lives of those around her, including the boy that she loves. Risking everything, she secretly passes along clues in the form of drawings, hoping they will reach her father’s prison camp. But will her messages, and her courage, be enough to reunite her family? Will they be enough to keep her alive?
Baby-Sitters Club
Kristy, Mary Anne, Claudia, and Stacey are best friends and founding members of The Baby-sitters Club. Whatever comes up — cranky toddlers, huge dogs, scary neighbors, prank calls — you can count on them to save the day. Baby-sitting isn’t always easy, and neither is dealing with strict parents, new families, fashion emergencies, and mysterious secrets. But no matter what, the BSC have what they need most: friendship.
Wings of Fire
Peace has come to Pyrrhia… for now.
The war between the tribes is finally over, and now the dragonets of the prophecy have a plan for lasting peace: Jade Mountain Academy, a school that will gather dragonets from all the tribes and teach them to live together, perhaps even as friends.
Moonwatcher isn’t sure how she feels about school, however. Hidden in the rainforest for most of her life, the young NightWing has an awful secret. She can read minds, and even see the future. Living in a cave with dozens of other dragons is noisy, exhausting―and dangerous.
In just a few days, Moon finds herself overwhelmed by her secret powers and bombarded by strange thoughts, including those of a mysterious dragon who might be a terrible enemy. And when someone starts attacking dragons within the academy, Moon has a choice to make: Stay hidden and safe? Or risk everything to save her new friends?
I Survived
These are the graphic novel editions of some favorite titles from the novel editions. These are obviously a great way to get kids interested in the historical fiction genre!
The Lightning Thief Graphic Novels
Mythological monsters and the gods of Mount Olympus seem to be walking out of the pages of twelve-year-old Percy Jackson’s textbooks and into his life. And worse, he’s angered a few of them. Zeus’s master lightning bolt has been stolen, and Percy is the prime suspect. Now, he and his friends have just ten days to find and return Zeus’s stolen property and bring peace to a warring Mount Olympus.
The Witches
Witches are real, and they are very, very dangerous. They wear ordinary clothes and have ordinary jobs, living in ordinary towns all across the world — and there’s nothing they despise more than children. When an eight-year-old boy and his grandmother come face-to-face with the Grand High Witch herself, they may be the only ones who can stop the witches’ latest plot to stamp out every last child in the country!
Stranger Things
In Science Camp, Dustin Henderson arrives at Camp Know Where anxious about spending the summer away from his friends after they saved their town from eldritch horrors. It doesn’t take long for him to find bullies to defeat, and fellow nerds to befriend. When a spooky masked figure starts making camp counselors disappear, the solution won’t take rocket science. Dustin gathers a crew of geeks to save their camp – and possibly their own lives.
Cobra Kai
Summer, 1984. Senior year is about to start and Johnny and the rest of the Cobra Kai rule the school. But, when the new kid makes moves on the girl that broke Johnny’s heart, he vows to settle the score and win back her love. Or so goes the story Sensei Lawrence tells his students nearly 35 years later.
A Wrinkle in Time
The world already knows Meg and Charles Wallace Murry, Calvin O’Keefe, and the three Mrs―Who, Whatsit, and Which―the memorable and wonderful characters who fight off a dark force and save our universe in the Newbery Award–winning classic A Wrinkle in Time.
But in 50 years of publication, the book has never been illustrated. In the graphic novel, Hope Larson takes the classic story to a new level with her vividly imagined interpretations of tessering and favorite characters, like the Happy Medium and Aunt Beast.
The Hobbit
When Thorin Oakenshield and his band of dwarves embark upon a dangerous quest to reclaim the hoard of gold stolen from them by the evil dragon Smaug, Gandalf the wizard suggests an unlikely accomplice: Bilbo Baggins, an unassuming Hobbit dwelling in peaceful Hobbiton.
Along the way, the company faces trolls, goblins, giant spiders, and worse. But as they journey from the wonders of Rivendell to the terrors of Mirkwood and beyond, Bilbo will find that there is more to him than anyone—himself included—ever dreamed. Unexpected qualities of courage and cunning, and a love of adventure, propel Bilbo toward his great destiny . . . a destiny that waits in the dark caverns beneath the Misty Mountains, where a twisted creature known as Gollum jealously guards a precious magic ring.
The Giver
In this boo, one of the great graphic novel adaptations, readers experience the haunting story of twelve-year-old Jonas and his seemingly ideal, if colorless, world of conformity and contentment through the brilliant art of P. Craig Russell that truly brings The Giver to life.
Witness Jonas’s assignment as the Receiver of Memory, watch as he begins to understand the dark secrets behind his fragile community, and follow the explosion of color into his world like never before.
1984
In 1984, London is a grim city in the totalitarian state of Oceania where Big Brother is always watching you and the Thought Police can practically read your mind. Winston Smith is a man in grave danger for the simple reason that his memory still functions. Drawn into a forbidden love affair, Winston finds the courage to join a secret revolutionary organization called the Brotherhood, dedicated to the destruction of the Party. Together with his beloved Julia, he hazards his life in a deadly match against the powers that be.
Animal Farm
In 1945, George Orwell, called “the conscience of his generation,” created an enduring, devastating story of new tyranny replacing old, and power corrupting even the noblest of causes. Today it is all too clear that Orwell’s masterpiece is still fiercely relevant wherever cults of personality thrive, truths are twisted by those in power, and freedom is under attack. In this fully authorized edition, the artist Odyr translates the world and message of Animal Farm into a gorgeously imagined graphic novel.
The Tale of Despereaux
Welcome to the story of Despereaux Tilling, a mouse who is in love with music, stories, and a princess named Pea. It is also the story of a rat called Roscuro, who lives in the darkness and covets a world filled with light. And it is the story of Miggery Sow, a slow-witted serving girl who harbors a simple, impossible wish. These three characters are about to embark on a journey that will lead them down into a horrible dungeon, up into a glittering castle, and, ultimately, into each other’s lives. What happens then?
Redwall by Brian Jacques
A series of books about the adventures of woodland animals living in a world where the animals talk, fight, and have adventures. A great early fantasy series. In this novel, the peaceful inhabitants of Redwall Abbey are under siege by the ruthless rat Cluny whose horde is determined to conquer the abbey. One mouse, Matthias, will discover a hero inside himself to save the abbey.
Pride and Prejudice
One of the most famous opening lines in English literature, the most compelling of stories, and a host of vivid characters, has won Pride and Prejudice its rightful pride-of-place on bookshelves throughout the world. For Mr Bennet, a quiet life is to be highly commended. For Mrs Bennet, finding eligible husbands for her five daughters is the most important of a mother’s duties. For Elizabeth, marrying without affection is unthinkable. But for them all, life is about to change when a handsome young man and his equally handsome and wealthy companion, take residence nearby.
Best Graphic Novel Adaptations
What are some of your favorite graphic novel adaptations? Are there any must read graphic novel adaptations that I left out? Let me know in the comments, and I’ll add it!
If you’re a member of the Picture Book Brain Trust Community, you already have access to EVERY lesson plan and activity for these books! Just click on the Lesson Plans button in the menu!
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