WNDMG

A Story’s A Story, No Matter How Small

By on October 14, 2026   /   Book Lists, WNDMG   /   Leave a comment

In recent news, the Guiness Book of World Records just named Advay Jain as the youngest person to publish a book at the tender age of 3 years and 345 days old! This news caught my eye since it takes me longer than that to simply finish a draft for my novels. However, this record-breaking news had me thinking about what makes an author an author and what makes a story a story. 

 

We all have narratives to share and everyone has the ability to write. With busy schedules and shrinking attention spans, readers may turn to short stories instead of full length novels. So this month’s post highlights some notable anthologies from recent years that put diverse authors at the forefront. Reluctant readers and busy bibliophiles alike can find themselves within the pages of these anthologies. 

 

LKM 2024 Anthology

Lit Kids Magazine 2024 Anthology

 

LitKids Magazine 2024 Anthology  Edited by Rebecca Weber. Lit Kids Magazine 2024 Anthology is filled with stories, poetry, art, and photography made by children who noticed something, wondered about it, and shaped it into their own creation. Inside, you’ll find small things and big things, funny things and serious things, imaginative things and thoughtful things. Each piece is proof that creating is an adventure, full of risks, surprises, and discoveries. Together, these pieces tell an important story: creativity is alive, powerful, and worth nurturing, especially in childhood.

 

Ancestor Approved: Intertribal Stories for Kids  Edited by Cynthia Leitich Smith and published in partnership with We Need Diverse Books. Featuring sixteen Native American authors—including Joseph Bruchac and Traci Sorell— this anthology weaves fantastic stories centered around a single intertribal powwow in Michigan. An incredible celebration of stories and poetry filled with humor, family joy, and contemporary Indigenous resilience.

 

 

 

 

 

The Door Is Open  Edited by Hena Khan. This anthology includes delightful stories written entirely by South Asian and Desi-American voices. Focusing on the diversity and of South Asian American experiences in a bustling community center in a fictional New Jersey town, your reader will love this exploration of  identity, new crushes, and cultural pride.

 

Once Upon an Eid: Stories of Hope and Joy by 15 Muslim Voices

 

Once Upon an Eid: Stories of Hope and Joy by 15 Muslim Voices  Edited by S.K. Ali and Aisha Saeed. The more we read, the more we know and what better way to experience the joy of Eid al-Fitr than with this incredible anthology. Showcasing fifteen different Muslim authors writing about the universal spirit of this holiday, this collection highlights a massive spectrum of global cultures, covering Shia and Sunni traditions, West African perspectives, and convert experiences. 

 

Black Boy Joy Cover

Black Boy Joy: 17 Stories Celebrating Black Boyhood  Edited by Kwame Mbalia. If you’ve never heard of this uplifting collection of sci-fi, fantasy, and realistic stories, you are missing out! Seventeen Black male and non-binary authors (including Jason Reynolds and Jerry Craft) share moving stories that celebrate triumph and happiness to challenge heavy media stereotypes.

 

 

On the Block  Edited by Ellen Oh (published October 2024). This anthology explores the lives of immigrant families living in a single apartment building. From beautifully honest looks at culture and family structures, this collection features twelve stories from authors like Jasmine Warga, Erin Entrada Kelly, Debbi Michiko Florence, Minh Le, and so many more!

 

 

 

You Are Here

You Are Here: Connecting Flights  Edited by Ellen Oh (published March 2023). A star-studded anthology of concurrent, interwoven stories following twelve Asian American kids embarking on a massive international airport terminal during a single incident. What could possibly go wrong? Find out through the work of Linda Sue Park, Grace Lin, Traci Chee, and Christina Soontornvat.

 

Black Girl Power

 

Black Girl Power  Edited by Leah Johnson (published 2024). A vibrant, heartwarming collection of 15 middle grade stories and poems that celebrates the joy, strength, and experience of Black girlhood, including stories from Ibi Zoboi, Sharon M. Draper, and Leah Johnson, as well as cover art from Caldecott winner Vashti Harrison.

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WNDMG Author Interview: Elizabeth Agyemang on her newest graphic novel “A Beginner’s Guide to Leveling Up”

By on September 10, 2026   /   Articles, Author Interviews, WNDMG  

WNDMG Author Interview – Elizabeth Agyemang

I’m so excited to be able to introduce you to author Elizabeth Agyemang today. Elizabeth is the author of multiple books for MG and YA readers, and today we will be discussing her newest graphic novel for middle grade readers: “A Beginner’s Guide for Leveling Up: A Graphic Novel” which comes out from Putnam/Penguin Kids on September 22, 2026.

Graphic novels are so POPULAR with kids right now! Librarians and educators- you don’t want to miss this!

About “A Beginner’s Guide for Leveling Up: A Graphic Novel:

TRON meets sixth grade in this heartfelt and fantastical graphic novel where a pixelated quest helps one girl navigate grief, friendship, and the wilds of middle school.

Sixth grade. The game just got real.

For Lexie, this year was supposed to be all about joining clubs, claiming the perfect lunch spot, and gaming after school with her best friends. But shifting friendships and the grief of losing her beloved grandfather make middle school feel more like someone switched her life to hard mode.

Then Lexie discovers a mysterious journal tucked inside her grandfather’s things. It’s filled with cryptic notes and cheat codes from an unfinished video game he was creating: Warrior’s Quest. When Lexie and her older sister, Eunice, are suddenly transported into the game’s pixelated world, the line between reality and fantasy starts to blur.

Can Lexie and her sister level up and face the monsters in the game—and in real life—or is it game over for good?

Interview with Elizabeth:

I loved getting to talk to Elizabeth about her new book and I know you will enjoy meeting her and her character Lexie as well.

 

SSS: I was fortunate to read an e-galley of this beautiful book! Tell us how you came up with an idea of this Lit-RPG graphic novel, (Lit-RPG, literature with characters in role playing/video games, is super popular on instagram right now, with “Dungeon Crawler Carl” being shared by many bookstagrammers.)

 

EA: Thanks so much for having me and for the kind words about A Beginner’s Guide to Leveling Up! The idea for this book came to me during a period where I had just finished working on my debut middle grade graphic novel, Fibbed. I was dealing with a lot of change at that point and navigating a familial loss.

I found myself wanting to escape back into the things I loved growing up: comics and video games! Initially the story was a way for me to blend those passions, but I soon realized that Lexi’s journey of grappling with the recent loss of her grandfather — all while trying to survive in middle school and figure out who she was—came to also be my way of wading into those questions.

I love that you describe the book as a Lit-RPG graphic novel! RPGs have always been a huge entry point for storytelling and the genre blending nature of Lit-RPGs is such an exciting aspect of that space. I loved being able to draw from my favorite elements of RPGs like character progression mechanics to explore the story in the book. One element of that is seen in how Lexie and her friends “level up” throughout the story.  

There’s also the RPG-like class archetypes that appear in how Lexie and her friends initially define themselves in the story versus who they become. For Lexie, she starts out believing herself to be one thing (a little sister, a sidekick in her friend’s stories) and realizes she has a capacity for so much more, and that sometimes it isn’t just other people putting us in a box—it’s ourselves. I also had so much fun making parody references to some of my favorite video games!

SSS: I love that! Tell us more about the character Lexie. How does she find healing and manage her grief through the story?

 

EA: Lexie is the youngest daughter in her family and really looks up to her oldest sister, Eunice. She also had a great relationship with her grandfather. But after his passing, Lexie feels like nothing in the world makes sense anymore. Her sister is being distant, she doesn’t have her grandfather anymore, and she just can’t be as excited about middle school like her best friends are. So, Lexie has to face the grief of losing her grandfather and losing her sister who is still around but feels like a stranger.

I don’t think Lexie even realizes she’s dealing with grief, because at such a young age, it can be very hard identifying what you’re actually going through. When the video game world takes over Lexie’s school, it’s only then that she and her friends realize that everything they were dealing with in real life is mirrored in the game. Lexie starts to realize that maybe if she can confront her grief through the game, then she can face it in her real life. Art for me has always been a way to grapple with life questions and topics. I wanted to use role playing games as a way to explore these themes alongside the fun adventures Lexie and her friends go on.

 

SSS: Tell us about Lexie and Eunice’s sisterhood. How does their relationship help (or hinder) them in their healing processes after their grandfather’s death?

EA: The story starts right when Lexie and Eunice are facing the first big challenge of their sisterhood. They’ve always been best friends, but now Lexie feels like she doesn’t even know her older sister anymore. Even though they are both dealing with the shared grief of losing their beloved grandfather, they are isolated from each other.

Lexie feels like Eunice is trying to make it seem like their grandfather never existed, while Eunice feels like Lexie is reopening old wounds by constantly bringing him up. As the story progresses and when the unfinished video game that their grandfather created comes to life, the two sisters begin to realize that, maybe, the way they’ve been separately dealing with their grief isn’t what they truly need. And as they are forced to face the game together, they also learn that they are stronger together—even when it comes to dealing with their individual fears.  

 

Link to order here.

Writing Process

SSS: I always like to ask authors about their writing process, but in this case, you are both author and illustrator of this beautiful book! What is it like to create a graphic novel, and is it a longer process than writing a prose novel?

EA: So, I’ve written two novels, and this is my second graphic novel and I feel like each one is a new learning experience. With prose novels, the challenge is putting the world you’re imagining into words. With graphic novels, you also have the additional challenge of drawing those worlds.

In the script, if I wanted to describe Lexie, I could use a few words to paint the picture, but that same picture can take hours to draw—and when you are drawing, you have to include details that you might not include when writing the character. Like, Lexie has a bracelet. In a novel, I’d probably mention it a few times, but in the graphic novel I have to draw the bracelet over and over again! Because of that, it’s definitely a longer process to create a graphic novel. It took me around 3 years and 11 months just sketching, inking, coloring and doing the lettering for A Beginner’s Guide to Leveling Up. Writing the script was a lot shorter, but even with that you have to think about the flow of the dialogue and the emotional and narrative beats of the story and later tweak that to fit the art.

When you’re drawing, you also have to think about the consistency of the art style even when your wrists are in pain or you’ve reached a point where you literally cannot physically draw the thing in your head! Overall, though, it’s really rewarding, but also incredibly challenging and the physical strain is intense. For my first graphic novel Fibbed, I drew most of the initial sketch by hand, scanned them, then inked, colored, and lettered them digitally (lettering being placing the text and bubbles). For A Beginner’s Guide to Leveling Up, I did most of my sketches digitally, though I did hand draw and scan some art pieces, and then I did the rest of the art digitally. So, my art process also changes depending on the needs of each book and how I want to approach them.

 

SSS: Are you a pantser or a plotter? And what helps you with finishing stories when you first start writing your drafts?

EA: Definitely a plotter! I always want to know where a story starts and finishes before I dive into it. That said, it still feels like an organic process because the characters might do or say something differently than what you plan.

 

For instance, when I first started working on A Beginner’s Guide to Leveling Up, I outlined it as just a fun romp with Lexie and her friends facing a video game world and trying to level up in middle school. That same core arc is there, but I got to know the characters better as I was writing and drawing the story. As a result, the book evolved, and the narrative became about what Lexie was dealing with in her personal life. That shift also impacted what the video game world of the book became too.

 

SSS: How is the process of writing YA different from writing MG?

EA: I’ve really enjoyed being able to write across different age categories. With YA, it’s always fun getting to tell stories about angsty and messy teenagers dealing with drama. With middle grade, I love the hopefulness and joy that’s really inherent in writing in this space. A young person’s relationship with their family plays such a big part in the middle grade journey, and I love weaving in the parental figures into those themes. In contrast, with YA I think teens are more focused on their friendships and their individual sense of personhood outside of their families.

 

Across both age categories, I enjoy finding out who the characters are. I also always incorporate art into my writing process even when it comes to writing prose novels like my YA novel, Heart-shaped Lies. I usually sketch or draw my characters even before they become characters in my books. I was looking back at my early art, and I realized I’d even done a drawing of a character in 2020 that would later become Lexie. So, it all really feels full circle!

 

SSS: Any advice for fellow middle-grade authors looking to write and illustrate MG?

 

EA: My biggest advice would be to read a lot of middle grade graphic novels! There are so many incredible creators telling stories in this space and I think the most rewarding part of writing and illustrating middle grade graphic novels is being in conversation with the work of some of my favorite writers and artists.

 

Taking the time to learn the craft and understanding the process of making graphic novels felt really instrumental to my growth as an artist. I also think, just in general, it’s okay to embrace imperfection. In a time when technology is removing us from the human experience, I find myself as an artist and a writer embracing my imperfections and my artistic style. Finding your style and what makes you, “you” as a writer and illustrator is rewarding because you’re bringing your unique voice into the conversation.

 

 

SSS: I have to ask! Are you a video game player in your regular life?

 

EA: Um, yes! I love video games and always have. In fact, part of why I started writing was because of video games. Video games like Kingdom Hearts, Final Fantasy, the Legend of Zelda, and so many more have a special place in my heart! The storytelling in role playing video games constantly inspires me to keep pushing the limits of how stories can be told.

 

Thank you Elizabeth for joining us and I know readers and librarians will enjoy your book!

 

About Elizabeth:

Elizabeth Agyemang writes and illustrates books that draw from folktales, history, and her African heritage. Her debut graphic novel, Fibbed, was a Parents.com Best Children’s Book of 2022 selection and a Chicago Public Library Best Fiction for Kids 2022 pick, and her work has been featured in Ebony, Paste, and Girls’ Life and on Time.com and OkayAfrica. When she isn’t gushing over books, Elizabeth spends her free time dissecting classic movies and TV shows.

Find her online at ElizabethAgyemang.com

 

Website: elizabethagyemang.com

INSTAGRAM: @authorelizabethagyemang

Tiktok: @authorelizabethagyemang

Newsletter: Notes from My Drafts Folder: http://eepurl.com/gOI7QD

 

 

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WNDMG: Let’s Talk Books with Children’s Librarian Althea Martinez

By on September 9, 2026   /   Articles, WNDMG  

School’s back in session! WNDMG chats with Althea Martinez, the children’s librarian at the Los Angeles Public Library, Baldwin Hills branch. She shares her thoughts about what middle graders are reading and exciting books for the fall.

Tell me about your background as a librarian. How long have you been a children’s librarian? Did you always want to be a librarian, if so, why? If not, how did you get into it? I’ve been a children’s librarian officially for almost two years, but before that, I worked in libraries intermittently since 2019. I’ve always wanted to be a librarian! I love the intersection of literature and community involvement and working in libraries has really opened up my world to different populations and local organizations.

 

What was your favorite middle-grade book as a child or even now? I have always loved Harriet the Spy because of how fun it seemed to wander around a big city and observe people. I also envied that Harriet had a chef, and she got to eat chocolate cake every day after coming home from school.

 

Share five diverse books coming out in the fall that you are excited to get on your shelf for middle-grade readers and why.

No Place on Earth by Andrea Beatriz Arango

This book features the concept of communicating through dreams. I really enjoy children’s books with spiritual elements, like Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya. They have longevity because children can still appreciate them as they get older.

 

Shook by Julian Randall

This is a great title! Shook is a novel in verse about a basketball player who injures his ankle. People with athletic talents often have a hard time finding an outlet when they are forced to take time off from sports, and I think the poetry format of this book will be an interesting emotional expression of that journey.

 

Paloma Joins the Circus by Lupe Ruiz-Flores

I love the idea of a cultural circus and being born into a family of performers. This novel takes place in Texas in the 1930s and features a Mexican-American protagonist. Historical fiction featuring Mexican-American characters is always interesting to me because it makes me curious if my grandparents might have had similar experiences.

 

Level Up by Daka Hermon

Imagine Invasion of the Body Snatchers, It, and A Nightmare on Elm Street, but updated for kids with smartphones. As a lot of elementary and high schools impose on-campus technology rules, I’m interested to see if children’s feelings about their devices change, and if this book presents a no screens or pro screens perspective.

 

Ghost in the Night by Tiffany D. Jackson

Mysteries that are also ghost stories are super engaging. This novel features a protagonist trying to determine if a photo she took is a ghost or a hoax, which reminds me of the Cottingley Fairies in England in 1917, an interesting case of belief in the supernatural but also impressive creative feats by children. This is a relevant topic because learning to discern real photos from doctored images is also a challenge that children are facing with AI.

 

What books/subject matter do middle-graders typically ask for in your branch? A lot of kids like to read fantasy series like Wings of Fire, but of course, graphic novels like Dogman are also very popular. Series that center around young girls like Ivy + Bean are favorites too.

 

Have you noticed any changes in the reading habits of middle-graders over the past few years? I find it interesting that kids still ask for books like A Series of Unfortunate Events, since that was a series that kids were reading when I was in elementary school. Wings of Fire has taken the place of books like Harry Potter, but fantasy is still an element that children enjoy. I also get kids who ask me for scary books, but not too scary, so Desmond Cole Ghost Patrol is another favorite.

 

If you could recommend one middle-grade book for parents to suggest for their kids, what would it be – past or present? Dawn Raid by Pauline Vaeluaga Smith is a really interesting novel that taught me about indigenous groups in New Zealand in the 1970s. I think it’s important for children to learn about civil rights in other nations. This book is a very accessible introduction to the way Samoan and Maori groups were mistreated at that time. Kids can compare these struggles with civil rights issues they may be learning about in history classes, in addition to building empathy and knowledge about other cultures.

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