Graphic Novels Your Kids Should Read Right Now!
I feel like graphic novels are a perfect medium for kids. Whether you have a kid who’s reluctant to read or a voracious reader who’s reluctant to put their book down, a graphic novel does the job––and does it well! Or, if your little reader needs a little win––and who doesn’t need a “little win” sometimes––there’s nothing more rewarding than finishing a book. Graphic novels can take familiar stories and make them new and can make new stories feel familiar.
This non-exhaustive list is filled with my favorite graphic novels of the moment, spanning a breadth of genres and themes and visualized in a variety of styles. These are the books that I think your kids (and you) should read right now!
Isaac Itkin can’t get away from his thoughts.
As a lonely twelve-year-old kid with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), everything from studying to looking in the mirror becomes a battle between him and a swarm of unhelpful thoughts.
The strict therapy his mother insists on doesn’t seem to be working, but when a group of friends invites him to join their after-school role-playing game, the thoughts feel a little less loud, and the world feels a little brighter.
But Isaac’s therapist says that exposure to games can have negative effects on kids with OCD, and when his grades slip, his helicopter mother won’t let him play anymore. Now Isaac needs to find a way to prove to himself, to his mother, and to the world that the way to quiet the noise in his head may have been inside him all along.
Ali Cross has always dreamed of following in the footsteps of his father, famous detective Alex Cross, who never gives up on a case. Ali’s chance to prove himself arrives sooner than he might think when his best friend, Gabe, goes missing.
But the more Ali digs, the more he realizes maybe he didn’t know his friend as well as he thought. At the same time, his house is hit in a string of burglaries. With his father on trial for a crime he didn’t commit, Ali is on his own to piece together the clues. Will Ali be able to trust his instincts and find his friend—or is he in over his head?
K is nice, polite, and always does as he’s told. K is also always, always in trouble.
No matter what he does or says, it seems there is someone ready to blame him for everything. K is in trouble for going to school. K is in trouble for staying home. K is in trouble for running an errand, getting sick, or just being thirsty. K gets into trouble with imperious crows, persnickety station agents, bombastic teachers, his own classmates…even one nice fresh carp.
Whether it’s his easily annoyed parents or prickly pedestrians on the street, K gets on everyone’s bad side…and he didn’t even do anything wrong!
Dale Donavan has heard the same lecture over and over again: Art will get you nowhere in life. A kid with a creative streak, Dale wants nothing more than to doodle, play video games, and create comics forever—maybe even as a full-time job one day. But between his grandfather pushing him to focus on his studies and a school with zero interest in funding arts programs, Dale feels like his future has already been decided for him.
That is, until he comes up with the perfect plan: What if he starts an after-school art club, gathers a team of creative students like himself, and proves all the naysayers—his stubborn vice principal in particular—wrong?
This might just work, but if the club isn’t financially successful by the end of the semester, the school with shut them down. This may be Dale’s only chance to show the adults in his life that a career as an artist is not just a dream but a possibility!
This hilarious and engrossing non-fiction graphic novel presents facts about life on Earth in the most entertaining, absurd, and funny way possible. It’s the perfect book for the factoid-obsessed reader, but also for the fact-allergic reader, because despite being full of facts, it’s also just a whole lot of fun!
Did you know that 32 pigeons have received medals for wartime valor? And a dog named Laika was the very first creature to orbit the Earth? Did you know that there is an island in Japan entirely overrun by bunnies? And — for a brief time — rats adorned with ribbons were a popular lap pet in upper-class London?In Andy Warner’s Oddball Histories: Pests and Pets, you can find out more than you ever thought possible about creatures both cute and weird, both large and small, while discovering new stories about human history from the perspective of our animal companions.
Did you know that bees communicate with each other using special dances? Or that a popular anime called Rascal the Racoon may be largely responsible for Japan’s huge raccoon population? Packed with incredible facts and charming stories like these, this is the perfect book for curious readers.
Ever since sixth grade, Ashton Price and their best friend and enduring crush, Ivy Santos, have spent their summers together at theater camp. Now it’s their last year before they part ways for high school, and Ash is determined to end it on a high note!
With Ash as stage manager and Ivy the lead in this year’s musical, this summer’s shaping up to be everything the two could have hoped for. Maybe Ash will even work up the courage to ask Ivy out! But between Ivy rehearsing long hours with her co-lead and Ash throwing themself into an ambitious stage production, will they end up drifting apart instead?
As summer wanes and September looms, Ash and Ivy’s friendship will change forever, one way or another.
When Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert decide to foster a teenage girl for the first time, their lives are changed forever. Their redheaded foster daughter, Anne Shirley, is in search of an exciting life and has decided that West Philly is where she’s going to find it. Armed with a big personality and unstoppable creativity, Anne takes her new home by storm as she joins the robotics club, makes new friends in Diana and Gilbert, experiences first love, and turns the ordinary into the extraordinary. But as Anne starts to get comfortable, she discovers one thing she wasn’t looking for: a family.
Many years after the disappearance of their mother, siblings Ben and Saoirse are still drowning in grief, as is their lighthouse-keeper father. Ben blames his little sister for the loss of their mother, and despite being six years old, Saoirse has yet to speak. When the kids discover that Saoirse is a selkie and the magical world that their mother told stories about is real, they dive into an adventure to keep the spirit world from disappearing forever. Based on the award-winning film Song of the Sea, this graphic novel is a wonder of magical storytelling and visual splendor that is destined to become a classic.
Charlie has a foolproof plan for the first day at her new middle school. Even though she’s used to starting over as the new kid—thanks to her military family’s constant moving—making friends has never been easy for her. But this time, her first impression needs to last, since this is where her family plans to settle for good.
So she’s hiding any interests that may seem “babyish,” updating her look, and doing her best to leave her shyness behind her…but is erasing the real Charlie the best way to make friends?
When not everything goes exactly to plan, like, AT ALL, Charlie is ready to give up on making new friendships. Then she meets the Curlfriends, a group of Black girls who couldn’t be more different from each other, and learns that maybe there is a place for Charlie to be her true self after all.
Muhammad Najem was only eight years old when the war in Syria began. He was thirteen when his beloved Baba, his father, was killed in a bombing while praying. By fifteen, Muhammad didn’t want to hide anymore—he wanted to act. He was determined to reveal what families like his were enduring in Syria: bombings by their own government and days hiding in dark underground shelters.
Armed with the camera on his phone and the support of his family, he started reporting on the war using social media. He interviewed other kids like him to show what they hope for and dream about. More than anything, he did it to show that Syrian kids like his toddler brother and infant sister, are just like kids in any other country. Despite unimaginable loss, Muhammad was always determined to document the humanity of the Syrian people. Eventually, the world took notice.
