Children's Book Suggestions | Graphic Novel Hybrids

What do you do with a kid who loves graphic novels but struggles with the transition to text-based chapter books? Try some graphic novel hybrids! These books use a mix of traditional text passages and comic-style illustrations. This helps kids build up their stamina for longer passages of text and harnesses the power of sequential art in reading comprehension.

Graphic novel hybrids aren't the only strategies for engaging readers who struggle with long blocks of text. Additional strategies include:

  • Novels in verse pair plenty of white space with age-appropriate topics, making complex stories with rich vocabularies more accessible to striving readers.
  • Digital audiobooks from Libby can be paired with print books (with narration slowed to match the reader's speed if necessary) or with fidgets, crafts, or coloring for kids whose concentration benefits from a kinetic focus.
  • For readers who thrive with the support of dyslexia-friendly fonts, our Libby e-books can be read with OpenDyslexic.
Updated July 25, 2025
LINCC (Libraries in Clackamas County) Oregon City Public Library
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The Bad Guys
Blabey, Aaron
Paper Book
NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE! "I wish I'd had these books as a kid. Hilarious!" -- Dav Pilkey, creator of Captain Underpants and Dog Man This New York Times bestselling illustrated series is perfect for fans of Dog Man and Captain Underpants. They sound like bad guys,...
Tired of being stereotyped as villains, five animal predators team up to liberate the local animal shelter with hilarious results. (Bridging Fiction Grades 2-4)
The 13-story treehouse
Griffiths, Andy
Paper Book
Andy and Terry live in a treehouse. But it's not just any old treehouse, it's the most amazing treehouse in the world! This treehouse has thirteen stories, a bowling alley, a see-through swimming pool, a secret underground laboratory, and a marshmallow machine that follows you around...

Shenanigans ensue when Andy and Terry, who live in the world's most amazing treehouse, brainstorm a variety of a wacky plot threads they could use for their book. (Children's Fiction Grades 3-5)

Diary of a wimpy kid : Greg Heffley's journal
Kinney, Jeff
Paper Book
Boys don't keep diaries--or do they? The launch of an exciting and innovatively illustrated new series narrated by an unforgettable kid every family can relate to It's a new school year, and Greg Heffley finds himself thrust into middle school, where...

The O.G. graphic novel hybrid that proved this format was a winning formula for engaging young readers! Greg Heffley chronicles his sixth grade year in this mix of text and cartoon illustrations about the highs and many, many lows of middle school. (Children's Fiction Grades 3-5)

Big Nate : in a class by himself
Peirce, Lincoln.
Paper Book
Now an animated series from Paramount + & Nickelodeon! For fans of the hilarious Diary of a Wimpy Kid series: Get ready to meet Big Nate! In the very first novel in the New York Times bestselling series, Big Nate is in a class by himself! Nate knows he's meant for big...

Based on Lincoln Peirce's long-running comic series, the first book in this series features a disorganized sixth grader Nate, whose unshakeable confidence gets him into all sorts of trouble following a fortune cookie promising that he will surpass all others. (Children's Fiction Grades 3-5)

Invisible Emmie
Libenson, Terri
Paper Book
Perfect for fans of Raina Telgemeier and Jennifer L. Holm, Invisible Emmie is a humorous and surprising debut graphic novel by Terri Libenson, creator of the internationally syndicated, Reuben Award-winning comic strip The Pajama Diaries. This is the story of two totally different girls--...

Two middle schoolers, one popular and the other painfully shy, navigate loneliness and first crushes in the first book of the Emmie & Friends series. (Young Teen Fiction Grades 5-7)


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