Mi Barrio

"(W) Robert Renteria, Corey Michael Blake (A) Shane Clester Adapted from the book From the Barrio to the Board Room by Renteria, who created a foundation that brings his message of hope to inner-city schools, Mi Barrio occupies a unique position in the sequential-art format: the inspirational graphic novel. Telling the story of Renteria's real-life struggle to escape a neighborhood filled with gangbangers and a home haunted by an abusive stepfather to eventually succeed as a president of his own laundry-machine company, Mi Barrio hits all the familiar points in a straightforward first-person narrative that eschews subtlety in favor of its lessons, while the artwork conveys the clean, efficient sense of a corporate brochure."