Category: The Stack

Cat’s little sister Maya has cystic fibrosis, so the whole family has to move to Northern California, where the climate is better for her. Cat is less than thrilled about the move, but when the sisters learn that their new town is haunted, they will both find out where they belong.

Charlie has moved multiple times, but she’s never been very good at making new friends. This time, she tries something different: hiding her true self in order to seem cooler and more likable. Needless to say, this goes badly! Can the Curlfriends — a small group of Black girls who love and respect each other for who they are — show Charlie what friendship is really about?

When their drinking spins out of control, Claire is forced to attend rehab, where a counselor and understanding new friends help them to understand themself better. But it’s easy to stay sober in a small, supportive environment. Can Claire find their place after returning to the “real” world?

Toshi owns a real estate company, loves to bake for his boyfriend Gonta — and is still most definitely in the closet. When he agrees to start emphasizing how LGBT-friendly his company is to customers, Toshi will have to confront his fears of being outed and discover how much the world has changed for the better (and make lots of delicious goodies, of course).

As a refugee and “indentured citizen,” Vep has never had full control over her own life. This is made even more apparent when she is forced to help colonize a strange planet that messes with the mind in ways that Vep will have to learn to understand and control if she wants to survive.

Katin was a very young child when the Nazis occupied her native Hungary, forcing her and her mother to flee. Katin’s fragmented memories tell a heartbreaking story of how war affects not just our physical safety, but our emotional and spiritual well-being.

On January 1, 2000, a magical catastrophe brought about the apocalypse. Years later, the world seems to have healed, but alas, it has not, and now it’s up to a girl named Marguerite and her dog Daisy to set things right again!

After humans go extinct, what will rise in our place? In this cute comic, it’s a race of lumpy purple creatures called Puramus who must learn to get along (and hopefully do a better job than we did!).

Still think stand-up is a stuffy old boys’ club? Then you’ll be happy to meet the female, trans, and non-binary comedians spotlighted in this breezy guide. Featuring profiles and recommendations of what to watch first, you’re sure to find lots to laugh about here!

Shijima and Higashikata both dream of being comedians, but Shijima is too shy to put his studies into practice, and Higashikata can’t be bothered to act on his ambitions. But when they team up, their weaknesses cancel each other out, and their strengths might just bring them the success they’ve always craved!

Lots of kids dream about their parents having an exciting job, like CIA spies. Glock lived that reality, and it was a lot less fun than other kids might think. When she stumbles upon their secret, Glock has to reassess everything she thought she knew about her life, her family, and the world.

In this classic manga, now all collected in one book, counterterrorist agent Motoko Kusanagi tracks down dangerous criminals who hack into the tech enhancements now commonly worn by regular people and take control of their minds and movements. (So, uh, remember that the next time the musky Twitter guy starts talking about implanting chips in people.)

Often banned for its queer and “adult” content, the award-winning This One Summer is a coming-of-age story that follows best friends Rose and Windy during a pivotal summer vacation. When real life gets a little too real, the girls will have to rely on each other to see it through.

This one recently made headlines when a middle-school teacher was fired for showing it to her class, but it’s hardly the only time it’s been banned. Reasons given for the bans include objections to its allegedly inappropriate sexual content and its allegedly inaccurate depiction of the Holocaust — both of which are an obvious smokescreen for homophobes and antisemites.

Like a lot of kids, Feng-Li doesn’t always get along with her siblings. Unlike a lot of kids, she and her siblings have been left alone in America while their parents go back to Taiwan, so they have to learn to stop squabbling and work together real quick if they want to stay safe!

In the quintessential “dysfunctional family” comic, Krosoczka relates his own unconventional childhood, which he spent being raised by assertive grandparents while his mother struggled with drug addiction and his father was nowhere to be found. Once he grew up, he was finally able to fully understand who his family is and why they are the way they are.

Everyone knows about John, Paul, George, and Ringo, but what about Brian? As this award-winning comic shows, the Beatles would not have gotten nearly as far as they did without their manager’s focus, drive, and creative vision.

The 1960s were, to put it mildly, a chaotic decade for Cuba. Marisol’s parents protect her from the upheaval by sending her to live in Brooklyn with a foster family that can never substitute for her biological one. Homesick and confused, Marisol must learn to make a place for herself on this strange new island.

Born in the midst of the Mexican Revolution, Consuelo’s life was marked by uncertainty and upheaval from an early age. Even after the Revolution officially ends, the tumult forces her father to go find work in America, leaving Consuelo and her pregnant mother to deal with the war’s aftermath by themselves.

This anthology tells the stories of four people — a Romanian boy, two brothers protected by the Dutch resistance movement, and a girl who survived two concentration camps — who were fortunate enough to emerge from the Holocaust alive. But inevitably, their experiences left them forever changed.