When it comes to reading, educators, parents, and publishers all want to meet kids where they are. And where they’ll find many middle graders today is on bumpy terrain. Declines in reading and math performance by fourth and eighth graders reported by the National Assessment of Educational Progress—colloquially known as the nation’s report card—and a steady drop in tweens’ pleasure reading indicated by NAEP’s latest long-term trend study have been causes for great concern. And a Common Sense Media survey indicating that tweens are spending upwards of five hours per day on digital devices and screens highlights the ongoing battle for kids’ time and attention. Publishers continue to address the challenges of this climate by seeking out projects that have fresh appeal, such as a slate of new STEAM-centric series that tap into kids’ shifting interests and will hopefully win some new readers—and perhaps spark the next generation of scientists, inventors, and explorers.
Graphic novels, comics, and other illustrated texts are a growing presence in the middle grade STEAM series category. “The graphic novel approach to STEM and nonfiction in general is really exciting, and building,” says Hilary Van Dusen, editor-at-large at Candlewick, where she also oversees the MIT Kids Press and MITeen imprints. As an example, she notes that the humorous Your Hidden Life series by Eleanor Spicer Rice, illustrated by Rob Wilson, from MIT Kids is gaining traction, with the third entry, Undercover Conversations: Eavesdrop on the Natural World, arriving in November. “We’re trying to take STEM outside of school and make it fun and interesting. My vision for these books is that maybe a kid will be exposed to something that they hadn’t thought about before and then they’ll want to explore it further.”
Kids Can also takes a visual tack with its new Comic Book History series exploring popular science and history topics via comic book–style panels. The first volume, A Comic Book History of the Big Bang and Beyond (May) by Anna Claybourne, illustrated by Rikus Ferreira, chronicles the origins and evolution of Earth, and includes humorous comment bubbles from plants, animals, and humans throughout.
Pairing STEAM and fiction elements with various visual formats has become a popular approach for series in recent years. An example falling on the funny side is MIT Kids’ Maker Girl and Professor Smarts graphic novels by Jasmine Florentine, who has a background in mechanical engineering and tech. The books, which feature 12-year-old BFF superheroes using engineering and science to fight villains, include real DIY maker projects for readers to try. The second entry, Beware the Evil Lair, is due in August.
For Jennifer Greene, executive editor at Nosy Crow, an emphasis on “story first” within the graphic novel format provides a gateway into STEAM topics. “It’s more approachable for a lot of kids,” she says. “Having the STEAM element woven in, if it’s done well, is really effective.”
Nosy Crow is seeing success with the Supa Nova young middle grade series by Chanté Timothy, starring a young Black science whiz who tries to solve some of the world’s biggest problems in her supersecret basement laboratory. Greene worked closely with Nosy Crow U.K. fiction publishing director Zöe Griffiths, who acquired the project. “Timothy drew on her childhood love of science to create a story where young readers can see themselves not only aspiring to be a scientist but actually doing a kind of revolutionary science,” Greene says. “It’s action packed and there’s a lot of humor, but it’s rooted in real science.” Each book has bonus panels by Timothy that detail the science behind the story, and extras like a drawing activity. Supa Nova: Robot Takeover, focused on AI, coding, and robotics, publishes in September.
Coming from MIT Kids in July, graphic novel series starter Sama Crushes the Code, by 17-year-old tech entrepreneur Samaira Mehta, illustrated by Jenny Alvarado, is “a nonfiction-fiction hybrid, but there’s a definite fiction story line that’s carrying the whole thing,” according to Van Dusen. “It’s a school story about a coding club, and embedded in the graphics of the novel are actual pieces of code and ways that the kids are going about solving problems.”
Mehta hopes this blend speaks to readers who are passionate about STEM. “I’ve spent years watching the moment that coding clicks for a kid—that exact second when abstract logic becomes personal power,” she says. “I wanted to put that moment inside a story, because stories get under your skin in ways that instruction never can.”
Adam Wallenta, author-illustrator and senior editor at Papercutz, credits classic comics by Stan Lee with inspiring his childhood love of reading. Later, he recalls, when he became an elementary school teacher, “I found graphic novels were a powerful tool that can be used in the classroom for any subject matter.” Wallenta brought those ideas—and real-life experience with his own kids and geophysicist wife—to his role at Papercutz, where he was tasked with creating original STEAM-related graphic novels. “I really believe in the format, and I’m also a big fan of the Magic School Bus and wanted to follow in the series’ footsteps of using visual storytelling to educate students.” One of the early results is the S.E.C.R.E.T. Steam Society, a series of self-contained graphic novels set at a fictional boarding school that hosts brilliant students from around the world.
First out of the gate was Horses by Trevor Mueller, illustrated by Gabriel Mayorga, in which classmates, including time-traveling alien exchange student Toot, help middle schooler Thea overcome her fear of horses. “Being able to do cutaways of inside the intestines of the horse and the bone structure and muscles really lends itself to graphic storytelling,” Wallenta says. In the follow-up, Music (Apr.), by Mueller and illustrated by Christian Colbert, “we talk about sound waves and travel inside the human brain and into the ear to see how it works.” Plans are to produce four titles per year. Additionally, Wallenta says that Papercutz is in the early stages of collaborating with the Smithsonian Institution on a new line of middle grade STEAM-related books.
Holding steady
Though graphic formats may have a certain flair, publishers are still publishing lots of STEAM series that are inviting in other ways. At Bright Matter Books, Random House Children’s Books’ nonfiction imprint, VP and publisher Tom Russell says narrative nonfiction is a “wonderful point of intersection between storytelling and education,” holding strong appeal for middle graders. “I think kids love stories just about more than anything,” he adds.
The compelling stories Russell heard on the podcast Lost Women of Science compelled him to take on a book series of the same name, cowritten by journalist Katie Hafner, the podcast’s founder and co-executive producer, and author Melina Gerosa Bellows. The Lost Women of Science #1, illustrated by Karyn Lee, which released last summer, illuminates the lives and accomplishments of 10 pioneering and influential woman scientists who had been forgotten by history.
“The research and interviews that they do are incredible,” Russell says. “All this fascinating new information has turned the tables on a lot of my thinking about the contributions of women in history. And I know that, as an editor, if something interests me, then I can package that and present it in a way that will interest kids as well.”
When considering what an interesting package might look like, Russell believes it’s important to remember that middle grade readers are still developing readers. “Sometimes they need a little breather, or they need only so many words or pages in a chapter,” he says. “And there are opportunities to bring in illustration, not only to help enhance the material, but also purely for decorative reasons. It’s more enjoyable to look at a book that not only is teaching you but transporting you somewhere else as well.”
The second installment in the series, spotlighting another 10 women, comes out in spring 2027, with a third in the pipeline.
Coauthor Hafner believes features presented alongside the stories are a boon for kids. “The illustrations are great, and I think kids love the ‘try this at home’ experiments,” she says, adding that the books offer new ways to fulfill an important mission. “We’re a 501(c)(3), nonprofit, called the Lost Women of Science Initiative, and one of our main goals is to inspire girls and young women to go into the sciences. Yes, we’re here to entertain, but mostly to educate and inspire. That’s one of the reasons that middle grade readership is the sweet spot for us.”
The editors agree that while coming up with fresh formats and approaches is important, it doesn’t mean abandoning tried-and-true strategies. Van Dusen says she sees middle grade STEAM series as an evergreen area, adding, “A lot of these books don’t get on the bestseller lists necessarily, but they’re steady sellers. It’s worth publishing into that, because they steadily build and reprint and stay in print for a while.”
Russell says STEAM, by its very nature, has a bright future. “One of the great things about science and technology is that there’s new things all the time,” he explains. “I think it’s probably the most dynamic of all the different categories and subject areas we publish into.”
Greene is likewise optimistic. “STEAM will always be there because of its curriculum connections,” she says. “Which is nice, but it has the potential for growth, because science and technology and engineering and even math and art are always expanding and growing themselves. There are always new innovations and discoveries, and even entirely new subject matter, like AI, or amazing fossil discoveries that reshuffle our understanding of dinosaurs. I think that is exciting.
