By Jeff Smith
Three little cousins get run out of their hometown and stumble, lost and separated, into a green valley where something with monstrous teeth is watching them from the woods.
The three Bone cousins are chased out of Boneville after one of Phoney Bone's get-rich schemes goes wrong, and they get separated crossing a desert. Fone Bone, the sweet one, ends up alone in a lush, unfamiliar valley, where he's befriended by a girl named Thorn and her tough old Gran'ma Ben, gets a helping hand from a talking bug named Ted, and keeps crossing paths with two big, hungry, quiche-obsessed rat creatures who'd very much like to eat him. Slowly the three cousins find their way back to each other, and it becomes clear the valley has an old, dangerous secret waking up inside it.
This is the one that made a generation of children fall for graphic novels, and it earns it. The cousins are cartoon-funny, so a child laughs their way in, but the valley around them keeps deepening into something sweeping and adventurous, the way Amulet does. Nine books wait after this one, and they build into a single epic story, so a child who loves it has a whole shelf ahead. The art is gorgeous and easy to follow, and the humor keeps the darker corners from ever feeling heavy.