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.

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!

This post is the second in a series of three.

Yesterday I reviewed this year’s Eisner nominees for Teens. Today I review the nominees for Early Readers (see my post of May 22 for an overview of all young readers’ categories). As usual, I’ve tried to describe each book fairly, though at the bottom I do signal my favorites. FYI, clicking on a book's title will take you to a publisher's page about that book.

​​​Bog Myrtle, by Sid Sharp (Annick Press)​
Picture-book and graphic-novel aesthetics mingle in this morbidly clever Gorey-esque fable about two sisters who live in “a hideous, drafty old house,” the spiders they live with, the looming forest outside, and a monstrous “old woman” who guards it. Ultimately, this becomes an impish satire of unchecked capitalism (versus sustainability). It’s in the same wheelhouse as William Steig’s original Shrek! or Eleanor Davis’ Stinky, sly, sharp books that cheerfully embrace the unlovely and weird. It feels too long (150 pages), too arch, and too verbose to be for “early readers,” but it’s a lovely, formally ingenious book, regardless of category.

​Club Microbe, by Elise Gravel, translated by Montana Kane (Drawn & Quarterly)
This spirited picture-book primer on microorganisms (bacteria, viruses, etc.) has a pleasingly random quality, as if inspired by Gravel’s enthusiasm rather than any pedagogical grand plan. Gravel’s odd examples and transitions, and the way she simultaneously undercuts and indulges in anthropomorphism (giving microbes eyes, for example), make for a book as daffy as it is didactic. The dangers posed by germs are duly noted, yet so is the whole biosphere’s dependence on microbes. The book presupposes an adult chaperone, as it delights in scientific names and glosses concepts such as antibodies and vaccination. Gravel’s wacky cartooning is a strong plus.

Hilda and Twig Hide from the Rain, by Luke Pearson (Flying Eye)
A new Hilda book? Sign me up! This one, though, is different: while still in BD album format, the story is briefer (mostly the events of a single afternoon), the pages less dense, the cartooning looser and even freer. Also, this is a prequel unencumbered by continuity, and really belongs to Hilda’s deerfox friend, Twig. Pearson seems to have rediscovered his characters with this short, sweet episode, which is witty, smart, rambunctious, but also warm and soulful. Call it a “new phase” Hilda book, perhaps an entryway for younger readers. I hope there will be more, because this is terrific.

Night Stories: Folktales from Latin America, by Liniers (TOON Books/Astra Books)
​Argentine comics genius Liniers, always delightful, does another TOON book, this one similar in format to Jaime Hernandez’s The Dragon Slayer (likewise a folktale sampler). Typical of TOON Graphics, it frames charming comics with didactic front and back matter. This one’s rather textbook-like introduction did not prepare me for the funny, spooky comics inside: three brief tales rooted in Argentinean, Brazilian, and Mexican folklore, framed as bedtime stories that two kids tell each other. Liniers’ ink and watercolor cartooning feels scruffy and alive, and he has a knack for droll, offhand details. I wish the stories and book were longer.

Poetry Comics, by Grant Snider (Chronicle Books)
I came to this skeptically, jaded by previous brushes with “poetry comics,” but Snider delivers what he promises: poems that are comics, comics that are poems. Over four cycles (Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter) and about seventy poems, he builds satisfying pages and sequences, varied in layout, graphic rhythm, prosody, metaphor, and mood. The poems (one or two pages each) balance the playful and pensive. Along the way, the child reader implicitly becomes a child poet. The overarching themes are familiar (love of nature, growing up, self-doubt, searching for words) but the delivery is artful. Snider’s simple, sketchy drawings work perfectly.

Final notes: a good category. I started with Bog Myrtle, which I dug, but then Poetry Comics impressed me greatly, appealing to my love of form and of books that encourage art-making among young readers. Ironically, I didn't come to Hilda and Twig, sentimental favorites of mine, until last, and although I was on guard against my own fannish bias there, I think I've finally come to the conclusion that, yes, Hilda and Twig is the one I'll vote for. It's just so good!

I'll be back tomorrow with a final post, about the nominees in the Kids category.

This post is the first in a series of three.

This year's Eisner Award nominations came out on May 15, and my most recent post here listed the nominees in categories that especially interest me, in particular those for young readers' books: Early Readers, Kids, and Teens. Since then, I've been scrounging books from the LA Public Library in hopes of reading all the nominees in those three categories before the (gulp!) June 5 deadline for voting.

Below are this year's nominated books for Teens. This is a fantastic list! Clicking on a book's title will take you to a publisher's informational page about the book. At the end of this post, I'll discuss which book I'm most likely to vote for (or at least the ones I'm having trouble choosing between!). 

Ash’s Cabin, by Jen Wang  (First Second/Macmillan) 
In this morally complex fable for living under the climate crisis, Ash, a disaffected fifteen-year-old fed up with human inertia and corruption, hikes into California's Shasta-Trinity National Forest in hopes of locating a secret cabin built by their late grandfather and staying there forever. Sympathetic, shaded, and beautifully drawn, Ash’s Cabin refuses simplicity and asks to be reread again and again. I found myself, first, chiding Ash for their stubbornness, but then rooting for them: a confounding experience that forced me to check my own moralisms at the door. Reviewed here on 12/05/2024. This made my best-of-2024 list for The Comics Journal.

Big Jim and the White Boy, by David F. Walker and Marcus Kwame Anderson, color by Isabell Struble  (Ten Speed)
This is not so much a retelling of Huckleberry Finn as an adventure story intertwined with Twain’s novel: a reimagining of the characters Jim and Huck, their origins, and their relationship. Framed by sequences of the aged Jim and Huck sharing their story during the Depression, and then again by the reflections of a 21st-century descendant, Big Jim depicts the traveling pair as Underground Railroad agents and soldiers against slavery whose long-buried history must be told. It’s a statement about how history gets made, and remade — suspenseful, complex in its sympathies, and bittersweet. The visual storytelling is expert and absorbing.

The Deep Dark, by Molly Knox Ostertag (Scholastic)
This magic-realist novel charts a slowburn romance between two young women: Nessa, bright, determined, and transfem, and her childhood friend Magdalena (Mags), now elusive and withdrawn, whose family harbors a frightful secret. Nessa comes back to town hoping to reconnect, but Mags can’t embrace the opportunity; something in (literally) her cellar is eating at her. This is by far Ostertag’s best-written, most persuasive book — to me, the only one that doesn’t feel rushed. She writes deftly about race, culture, and gender, and conjures a beautiful Mojave Desert setting. The two leads are wholly convincing, the cartooning gorgeous. A new classic.

The Gulf, by Adam de Souza (Tundra Books)
Thematically parallel to Ash’s Cabin, yet tonally and aesthetically very different, this Canadian GN follows a group of runaway high-schoolers who escape to a rustic island. There they hope to join a commune and opt out of social expectations and the heartless grind of capitalism. One of them, Olivia — impulsive, at times furious, and complex — is the story’s driver, but all the characters are well realized. De Souza captures their confusion, cluelessness, and changeability so well that I sometimes wanted to shake them! I love De Souza’s scratchy cartooning, artfully limited color palette, and powerful sense of environment and space. 

Lunar New Year Love Story, by Gene Luen Yang and LeUyen Pham (First Second/Macmillan)
This winsome romcom, another structurally ingenious graphic novel written by Gene Yang, is sumptuously drawn by LeUyen Pham, whose Vietnamese heritage informs the book’s choice of protagonist and depiction of diverse Asian American communities. The plot is rigged: a young Vietnamese American woman, Valentina, traumatized by the revelation of family secrets, rejects the once-loved rituals of Valentine’s Day (her namesake) and swears off romance. However, connections made through the joyful practice of lion dance test her resolve. The story is typically charming, though daubed with Yang’s usual darkness, and the hoped-for climax arrives by unconventional means. A robust, delightful collaboration.

Out of Left Field, by Jonah Newman (Andrews McMeel)
In this frank coming-out story, a nerdy high schooler goes out for his school’s baseball team while closeting his gayness. Newman charts the anxious social maneuvering of teens with secrets while evoking adolescent homophobia (including internalized homophobia) in a sharp and knowing way. The story skirts cliché, with an open-ended denouement that does not quite exonerate its morally confused protagonist but foretells an out and happy future. The depiction of teen sex (and sex talk) startled me with its openness, though the visuals are not explicit. Alas, Newman’s cartooning feels bland and sterile, and is no match for his writing.

​Final notes: This is such a hard category to choose from — an excellent list of books! I was glad to read every one of them. I came in with a bias toward Ash's Cabin (Jen Wang's best book, IMO), but in the last week have read two or three others that I'd be almost equally likely to vote for. At the moment, I'm divided between Ash's Cabin and The Deep Dark (a new high for Molly Knox Ostertag). Big Jim is going to be remembered as a landmark book, rightly so, and The Gulf is a tremendous feat of cartooning.

The above books are affirming, progressive, and either explicitly or implicitly political, yet also complex, layered, and unpredictable. Several are challenging in ways that "adult" graphic novels usually don't manage. Most are splendidly designed and graphic beautiful. One hell of a ballot.

Wish me luck as I race against time to finish reading all the Early Reader and Kid nominees!