My Favorite Thing Is Monsters by Emil Ferris
Karen Reyes is a precocious ten year-old growing up in 1960s Chicago. Her mother is sick, her brother is dodging the draft, and their upstairs neighbor—an enigmatic Holocaust survivor named Anka—was just murdered. As Karen steeps herself in the past and tries to solve Anka’s murder (think Harriet the Spy meets Maus) the life she’s been avoiding continues …
