I hate to say it but…summer is coming to a close. Sigh. If you have children prepping for the new school year, the Small Press Spotlight has a few books for middle-grade readers to get them ready for back to school. Check them out below!
Due on September 5, Gotta Go is described as a “funny and ‘appropriately goldenrod-washed comic, acclaimed designer Viva assures readers that no one ever outgrows needing to go.’ (Publishers Weekly).”
“I’ve been watching the way children’s picture books have voraciously embraced some of the elements of comic books–dialog balloons, panels–for years now, and it’s truly fascinating, it feels at times like I’m seeing an illustrator weaponize a new color, a new power chord. A panel-to-panel transition can control the pacing of a scene much like the page turn in a picture book can influence the shift of a mood. When the illustrations in Frank’s Gotta Go pages started to arrive, we realized we had the opportunity to turn that embrace of comics by picture books into a mutual thing. These are pages that had to be bigger, they needed that volume and luxury that comes from the scale of a traditional picture book size.Plus I’m also somebody with a ten-year-old, which means I’ve spent the past decade factoring bathroom visits into every trip I take–it’s a subject to be taken seriously, and what’s more serious in picture books then a book with a fancy dust jacket? There isn’t a parent alive who doesn’t know the trials and tribulations of a long bathroom line.”
CROSS MY HEART AND NEVER LIE by Nora Dasnes
Set to release on September 19, this middle-grade graphic novel is written in “a fresh, sensitive, diary-style…12-year-old Tuva’s questions about becoming a teenager are confusing–so when her first crush turns out to be on another girl, it feels absolutely wonderful–so why does it become so complicated?”
Alice Oseman, New York Times Bestselling author of the Heartstopper series, said:
“A soft and adorable story of first sapphic love and the trials and tribulations of pre-teen friendships, with gorgeous cozy artwork. Reading this was like a warm hug.”
Slated for October 3, Super Space Weekend is a nonfiction graphic novel and the first in the Science Adventure Club series. The book “takes readers on a thrilling voyage through our universe. For kids into space, this is the ultimate astronomy adventure.”
