I'm Reading Comeeks

Sunny is a wonderful award winning graphic novel series.  It's another series that was originally published in a seinen magazine.  It follows a group of kids who live at Star Children's Home,   They are abandoned, misunderstood and lost, but each one keeps struggling forward, sometimes with help, sometimes on their own, for a life on their own terms.

The art is really fantastic, mainly in black ink/brush strokes/washes, but with at least a couple water color illustrations in each volume.  The colors are muted, which matches the tone of the stories, which always remind me of childhood, a feeling of little control over life, yet also a vibrant desire to be something, go somewhere.

I've just finished the 5th volume in the series, where some pretty tough situations occur, one child finally enacts his plan to return home, another falls ill and fears for his mom who has been hospitalized and can't take care of him or his brother, but there is also a lot of hope.  One girl despite her reservations comes to realize that it's okay to love other adults even after her parents died and the last scene shows Haruo, a boy who feels very abandoned by his come-and-go mother, rails against a coming storm, saying, "You'll never defeat me!"

Librarian Notes:  I haven't really seen many series in the library at least that have originated from josei magazines (manga for adult women), and those that I have seen are generally seen as shonen series and stuck in the teen section.