The third annual Dwayne McDuffie Award for Kids Comics was given to Raina Telgemeier’s Ghosts at the Ann Arbor Comic Arts Festival on June 17.

Ghosts tells the story of two sisters, the younger one facing a life-threatening illness, who move to a new home perched on the edge of the fantastic. The book addresses the reality of death and the endurance of love with sensitivity and grace.

In accepting the award, Telgemeier turned a spotlight on ten other excellent books for young readers, all of them by diverse creators. Those books were:

NewsPrints

By Ru Xu

Lowriders in Space Book 1

By Cathy Camper and Raul the Third

The Shadow Hero

By Gene Luen Yang and Sonny Liew

Little White Duck

By Na Liu

Lola: A Ghost Story

By J. Torres and Elbert Orr

Giants Beware

By Rafael Rosado and Jorge Aguirre

Phoebe and her Unicorn Book 1

By Dana Simpson

Lucky Penny

By Yuko Ota and Ananth Hirsh

Ms. Marvel Volume 1: No Normal

By G. Willow Wilson and Adrian Alphona

How to Find a Fox

By Nilah Magruder

After describing the ten titles, Telgemeier surprised the audience by announcing that she had purchased one hundred books—ten each of the ones she had just highlighted—to give away to young people in attendance. Following the award ceremony, the giveaway table was mobbed by young readers.

“In the spirit of sharing the love of comics,” Telgemeier said, “I decided to take this opportunity to share some of my favorite comics with the audience at A2CAF, in the hope that they will find more amazing work to discover.”