What to hand them next.
My daughter has read every Big Nate book in our house twice, and last week she checked out three more from the library that I'm pretty sure are the same ones she already read. She's not stopping. She's in deep. The doodles in the margins, the eternal war with Mrs. Godfrey, the fact that Nate Wright is both terrible at school and completely convinced of his own genius. It's the whole package. If your kid is in the same place, here are eight graphic novels that carry the same energy: school chaos, friendship disasters, teachers who don't get it, and kids who think they're funnier than they actually are. Which, let's be honest, they usually are.
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Greg Heffley is trying to survive middle school without getting noticed, which is hard when your best friend is a walking disaster and your older brother is hunting you for sport. The diary format, the stick figure drawings, the absolute certainty that everyone else is the problem. It's the blueprint.
Pick this one if they love Nate's self-absorbed narrator energy.
Peppi accidentally shoves Jaime into a locker on the first day of school, then spends the rest of the book trying to avoid him while also kind of wanting to apologize. It's school social warfare drawn in full color with actual emotional stakes under the comedy.
Pick this one if they want Big Nate but with more feelings.
The lunch lady at school is secretly a crime-fighting superhero who uses spatulas and fish sticks as weapons. Hector, Dee, and Terrence are her sidekicks. It's fast, it's ridiculous, and the lunch lady has a hairnet utility belt.
Pick this one if they want school humor with actual villains to fight.
Max gets stuck in his locker on the first day at a new school, then accidentally becomes a hero when he stops a robbery while trying to escape. Same doodle-heavy diary format as Big Nate, same delusional confidence, written by the Dork Diaries author who knows this formula cold.
Pick this one if they love the doodle margins and overblown stakes.
Artie King starts at a new middle school and somehow ends up in an epic dodgeball battle that's structured like a King Arthur quest. Lunch table politics, a bully named Joe Roman, and a gym teacher who might be Merlin. It's Camelot in a cafeteria.
Pick this one if they want school stories with fantasy layered in.
Babymouse is a mouse who daydreams her way through school, gym class, and friendship drama. The art is black and white with pink accents, the inner monologue is relentless, and gym class is portrayed as the nightmare it actually is.
Pick this one if they love characters who live in their own imagination.
Amelia moves to a new town and joins a group of kids who think they're superheroes, which mostly means wearing capes and getting into arguments. It's got heart, actual character growth, and the kind of friendships that involve a lot of yelling.
Pick this one if they want friendship chaos with a superhero side quest.
Calvin is six, thinks he's smarter than every adult in his life, and has a stuffed tiger who may or may not be real. It's the original kid-versus-school comic strip, and Watterson drew it like he was making art, not just punchlines.
Pick this one if they're ready for the comic strip that invented this whole vibe.
Also on: Books for the Kid Who Can't Get Enough of The Bad Guys
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