I’m not a fan of graphic novels. I picked this one up because I know I have a lot of students who are fans, but then I put off reading it because I didn’t want to have to.  Then it turned out I liked it.  A work of historical fiction set during the Napoleonic wars, it tells the story of a young boy on his first voyage with a British war ship.  The characters and the plot are well developed, and sidebars on each page provide definitions and context for historical references, and I’ve decided that graphic novels provide a particularly good format for introducing students to unfamiliar historical periods because the illustrations give them a visual of what it was like.