2024 Festival:
October 21–27

16: Friendship and Fitting In (Grades 4–7)

16: Friendship and Fitting In (Grades 4–7)

This event is SOLD OUT in person. Tickets can still be purchased to view the livestream!

All 2022 Festival Youth events can be attended in-person or viewed online. Please ensure that you select the correct ticket option during checkout.

Finding friends and fitting in is always challenging—even more for kids when they move to a new community, or join a new team… or are secretly a lizard. These three graphic novels for Middle Grade kids show the turbulence of navigating new situations, from swim team to riding competitions to a new school, and offer solace and solutions for how to deal with this universal experience of figuring out what it means to belong. Kids will be engaged and reassured by Johnnie Christmas (Swim Team), Faith Erin Hicks (Ride On), and Jonathan Hill (Tales of a Seventh-Grade Lizard Boy). Grades 4–7.

Event Participants:

Johnnie Christmas

JOHNNIE CHRISTMAS is a #1 New York Times bestselling graphic novelist. Best known for co-creating the series Angel Catbird with Margaret Atwood, he joins the Festival with an adult title, Crema, and Swim Team for middle grade readers. (BRITISH COLUMBIA)

Faith Erin Hicks

FAITH ERIN HICKS is a writer and artist whose published works include Ride On, The Adventures of Superhero Girl, The Last of Us: American Dreams (with Neil Druckmann), Comics Will Break Your Heart, and the New York Times bestselling Pumpkinheads (with Rainbow Rowell). (BRITISH COLUMBIA)

Jonathan Hill

JONATHAN HILL is an Ignatz-nominated cartoonist. He was the artist on Americus and his first solo book, Odessa, was published in 2020. Tales of a Seventh Grade Lizard Boy is a funny, insightful graphic novel about identity and the perils of middle school. (UNITED STATES)