The world we knew is gone. The world of commerce and frivolous necessity has been replaced by a world of survival and responsibility. An epidemic of apocalyptic proportions has swept the globe causing the dead to rise and feed on the living.

So says the back cover of The Walking Dead, Volume One: Days Gone By, written by Robert Kirkman with art by Tony Moore. This 2006 book is the first in a continuing series and features Rick, a police officer, as its protagonist. He’s an honorable, handsome, very resourceful man who loves his wife and son. The story follows Rick as he awakens from a coma to find the world around him irrevocably changed … it’s human vs. zombie now, and he must find a way to survive against all odds. He meets a range of other characters, representing all walks of life, who form a camp in the woods to hide from the zombies.

Kirkman’s realistic writing style aptly captures the excitement, the fear, the suspense, and the heartache, and Moore’s excellent black and white pen and ink illustrations convey the terror, grotesqueness, and emotion of the story with intimate, intricate detail.

This book is essentially the story of one man’s journey toward survival and shows the prevailing goodness of humanity in the darkest of times. It reminds me of Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Road in the way it portrays the desperation and loneliness of man when faced with the apocalyptic unthinkable. Adults might consider reading this as an accompaniment to The Road because they both focus on surviving with loved ones in a desolate, ever-changed, terrifying world. (I’m not recommending The Road for young audiences, as I am still somewhat traumatized by reading it at 33.)

There’s some rough language in The Walking Dead, and the zombie scenes are certainly disgusting and graphic, but a mature teen can definitely handle it, and teens will also probably enjoy the romantic tensions in the story.

The Walking Dead, a unique and devastatingly moving twist on the traditional zombie genre with its focus on love, family, emotions, and the ties that bind – particularly touching is the scene when the characters sit around the campfire in the snow sharing what they used to do in their “past lives” – is an essential selection, in my opinion, for public libraries and possibly even high school libraries. It will definitely leave readers wanting to read the next volume and find out what happens next.