A debut YA graphic novel about unlikely friends, Justin Madson’s Tin Man is the story of the title character seeking a heart and a high schooler trying to come to terms with the death of her grandmother.

Solar is in her last year of high school and is reeling from the recent death of her grandmother. She has abandoned her plans for the future and fallen in with a bad crowd. Her little brother, Fenn, doesn’t understand why she’s changed—she doesn’t even want to help him build their rocket in the garage anymore.

Campbell is a tin woodsman—a clunky metal man whose sole purpose in life is to chop down trees. He longs for more, however, and decides to seek out a heart, believing that, with one, he will be able to feel things he has never felt before and, therefore, change his life.

Equal parts The Iron Giant, The Wizard of Oz, Edward Scissorhands, and Freaks and Geeks, Tin Man is a story about finding friendship in the unlikeliest of places.

“Creatively explores growing up, loneliness, and loss . . . The bright, angular illustrations emphasize the isolation and yearning felt by the three protagonists as they weather small-town life.” —Horn Book