Tolerance, family relationships, self-discovery, bullying, fitting in, anxiety, and substance abuse. These are just a handful of the many themes explored in the new wave of realistic graphic novels quickly gaining popularity with today’s middle graders, tweens, and teens.
There’s no doubt that tweens and teens want to feel more understood and less alone at a time when they’re grappling with a lot of changes. The contemporary stories about real-life experiences in today's graphic novels are a hot commodity because they explore the issues that kids today are actually facing.
Graphic novels pull kids in, make them laugh out loud, nod in shared understanding, or even shake their head in anger. Stories are told through quirky imagery and conversational text, relaying each character’s thoughts or speech as if they're speaking directly to the reader.
Many of today's graphic novels have more complex, detailed, real-life storylines than their traditional comic book counterparts. For instance, take Guts, a graphic novel by Rana Telgemeier (the author of Smile and Sisters) about a relatable girl who experiences anxiety, tummy woes, and complicated relationships. There's also New Kid, a story about a seventh grader who feels like he doesn't fit in at his new, mostly-white school — and which recently became the first graphic novel to win The Newbery Medal.
These types of realistic fiction and memoir-based stories have the potential to inform our children’s developing world views by offering diverse perspectives to a range of shared life experiences.
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