The Gull Yettin, by Joe Kessler

Without using a single word, Kessler deploys vivid colors and haphazard drawings to create a graphic masterpiece about a young boy who loses his parents in a fire. Saved by a shapeshifting creature, the protagonist finds an imperfect but loving family, and Kessler powerfully evokes the trajectory of grief using fantastical and visual elements to do the work of narration, a strategy that imbues the book with a rare subjectivity and beauty.