Recommended Reading
YES I contributed to this series but listen it’s my website I can do what I want.
Middle-grade graphic novels for ages 8-12 (and older! and a little younger!), these books are adaptations of the prose series you might remember seeing at ye olde Waldenbooks or Scholastic catalog back in the day. They are fun and full of heart, friendship, and kids learning how to communicate better with their favorite friends and grownups.
This adaptation of the popular Dungeons and Dragons podcast absolutely shines. Carey Pietsch is a genius. I cannot believe she can draw cars and horses in the same book. She deserves five Eisners.
Do you like laughing and also crying? Consider picking up these books, which I think are YA because sometimes there are cusses, but really it’s fun for the whole family.
Behold: the printed edition of one of the most deservedly popular webcomics of all time. There are only two volumes, making it very easy to carry around and force into the hands of strangers at parties. That’s what you do at parties, right? Make people read things?
Check, Please! is about hockey and a bunch of people who love each other very much. Come for the hockey, stay for the cursed couch. It is also YA.
Do you like giant robots, intergalactic drama, and searing political commentary? Yeah, me too!
Cosmoknights is a very cool, thrillingly queer space adventure for all your favorite thirteen-and-ups, and can be consumed in book format and on the world wide web.
Know what you need in your life? An award-winning, action-packed middle grade steam/dieselpunk duology!
The Newsprints books are all about a girl named Blue and the government secret she stumbles into – great for fans of intricate, whimsical stories with lots of heart and killer cartooning, and available at great bookshops everywhere.
You know those picture books that burrow themselves into some weird part of your subconscious and occupy a very specific feeling in your heart, even through adulthood? The ones that you can open and remember the feeling of the breeze coming through the window as you read them? This is that kind of a book.
A lush Western fantasy for ages 10-14.
The most delightfully chaotic middle grade series out there, bar none. True to the tween spirit in a way that is both hilarious and hurtful to me personally.