2025 Eisner Nominees: Kids

This post is the last in a series of three.

Yesterday I reviewed this year’s Eisner nominees for Early Readers. Today I finish this series by reviewing the nominees for Kids, which in practice mostly means middle-grade readers, roughly 8 to 12 years old (see my post of May 22 for an overview of all the young readers’ categories). As usual, clicking on a book's title will take you to a publisher's page about that book.

Kids is another a very strong category this year, so choosing which book to vote for is hard! See the end for my favorites, and some other notes and reflections. 

​How It All Ends, by Emma Hunsinger (Greenwillow/HarperCollins)
A precocious seventh grader skips directly into high school, then worries that she is not up to the challenge. Her mind runs a mile a minute as she attempts to age up to proper teenagehood. Hilarity ensues, but also a loving relationship with a classmate, another girl, who becomes her lifeline and then some. This is all thematically familiar, but, wow, Hunsinger made me laugh out loud in the first few pages. From then on, I was invested. The novel is uproarious, offhandedly quirky, and sweet. Hunsinger’s loopy characters and freehanded cartooning are delightful, her world humanly weird and vivid.

Next Stop, by Debbie Fong (Random House Graphic)
Pia, a shy middle-schooler, takes a summer bus tour to kitschy tourist traps: a cactus-themed park, the World’s Biggest Melon, etc., all leading to an underground lake that, legends say, grants wishes. Unaccompanied by parents, Pia learns to make friends en route, yet harbors a deep grief, its causes revealed through agonized flashbacks. Balancing cynicism against wonder, the layered narrative recalls Sharon Creech: loss is denied, but then processed via travel and friendship. Fong’s artwork is clean and simple-looking yet conveys a tonally complex story, at once farcical, lighthearted, and gripping. The plot, though obvious in hindsight, is quite suspenseful.

Plain Jane and the Mermaid, by Vera Brosgol (First Second/Macmillan)
A feminist fairy tale in a fantastical underwater world: Jane, a young woman turned out of house and home by the patriarchy, literally walks into the sea to rescue the mermaid-abducted man she thinks she is going to marry. This is her alternative to living in a cruel, sexist world without a husband. A colorful, sometimes nightmarish quest results, with the young man cosseted by the beautiful but dangerous mermaids while Jane bonds with a selkie. Brosgol’s typically well-tailored plot and expressive cartooning deliver in spades. Reviewed here on 6/27/2024, this later made my best-of-2024 list for The Comics Journal.

Weirdo, by Tony Weaver, Jr. and Jes & Cin Wibowo (First Second/Macmillan)
In this semi-fictionalized memoir, Tony, an eleven-year-old blerd, attends a super-competitive school where he endures bullying and isolation until, implicitly, a suicide attempt leads to a change of schools and the growth of new friendships with other nonconforming nerds. Together, Tony and his friends rally their school when it is threatened with closure. Rife with visual metaphors, funny details, and character business, this one goes by in a rush; I wish I got to know certain characters better. Bright and affirming, if sometimes vague, it wills itself a happy ending. The art excels at character, less so place or atmosphere. 

Young Hag and the Witches’ Quest, by Isabel Greenberg (Abrams Fanfare)
I was ready for yet another GN about a young witch, but this turned out to be a sly, inventive reweaving of Arthurian legend—a feminist reinvention focused on Morgan le Fay, her granddaughter, and the sword Excalibur, now broken. At once a quest fantasy and a metanarrative, Young Hag stresses roaming and storytelling, with playful nods to myriad intertexts (Spenser, Rosetti’s “Goblin Market,” etc.). The dialogue avoids archaism and the artwork favors penciled immediacy over slickness: no fluid, inflected lines here, just roughhewn scratching. The reversals and twists are ingenious, the art hypnotically cool, and the spirit catching. Wonderful.

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Final notes: Going in, I thought Plain Jane would be my vote in this category, but then I read How It All Ends and Young Hag. Damn, choosing is difficult! I have just another day or two to decide...

This year the Eisners' young readers categories are exceptionally rich. Both the Kid and Teen categories are dazzling. IMO, the last few years have shown the wisdom of growing out the young readers' categories to three and making sure that the judging panel always includes at least one expert on young reader's comics. These categories have definitely affirmed their maturity and relevance this year.

Over the past two weeks, I've read or reread sixteen books in these three categories. I borrowed a dozen from LAPL. While I've become pickier about the comics I buy and keep, I'd be happy to have at least ten of these books in my home library so that I could reread them at my leisure. There are so many keepers here.

If you haven't already, please, seek out these comics and read them!