The Who HQ Graphic Novels series (3 new titles) does an excellent job of quickly engaging readers by capturing the drama and immediacy of pivotal historic events. Each biography profiles one famous individual and plunges readers into the past with equal degrees of intensity. After a page or two of introductory material that sets historic and social context, the stories deploy snappy dialogue and vibrant artwork to effectively propel the action. Special war correspondent Alfred Waud covers the Battle of Gettysburg in What Was the Turning Point of the Civil War?, which, despite interrupting the graphic panels with necessary background information, still manages to keep the narrative's momentum going. In addition to the occasional explanatory sidebar, titles include concluding summaries, time lines, and bibliographies. These graphic offerings manage to pack in an impressive amount of information and are sure to appeal to middle-grade readers.

This latest in the series illustrates a small slice of the Civil War.When Gen. Robert E. Lee's Confederate Army of Northern Virginia met Union Gen. George Meade's Army of the Potomac outside the small Pennsylvania town of Gettysburg, the bloody battle raged for several days but ended in the Union's first big victory. Crenshaw tells the story primarily from the Union point of view, with Meade as a central character and "special artist" Alfred Waud as the protagonist. Waud followed the soldiers and drew images of the battles, including what is likely the only known eyewitness depiction of Pickett's Charge. The graphic novel format works well for the story except that it's hard to distinguish the individual Union soldiers, all dressed in blue and remarkably similar. The battlefield images convey destruction and loss without graphic horror and end on a note of hope with Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. Though all the soldiers at Gettysburg appear to be White, the story includes Black war journalist Thomas Morris Chester and discusses White supremacy and the spread of the deliberate false history of the Lost Cause.A nuanced piece of history told simply and well. (timeline, bibliography) (Graphic history. 7-12)