The Silver Unicorn, an independent bookstore that sells new books for all ages, hosted its second annual Kids Graphic Novel Festival on Saturday, April 20, 2024. Three thousand people attended. Even a little rain in the morning couldn’t dampen the enthusiasm of young adult readers, who got to meet eighteen of their favorite authors and illustrators throughout the day.
If you are unfamiliar with the genre, graphic novels:
· Are engaging: The combination of words and illustrations can be captivating, providing context for stories that kids might not otherwise understand.
· Are fast-paced: Graphic novels offer quick-read alternatives with quickly unfolding plotlines.
· Build vocabulary: Graphic novels often sneak in vocabulary words and train the brain to decode words and pictures.
· Build confidence: The illustrations give readers cues that enable them to read faster, and they can extract the meaning of difficult words by looking at drawings and illustrations.
· Improve comprehension: Readers are drawn to the same book over and over and, each time they read it, they pick up on something new.
· Improve critical thinking skills: Graphic novels invite the reader into worlds and subject matter in a way that helps them gain confidence and build comprehension and critical thinking skills.
· Provide positive representation: Graphic novels can provide positive representation for readers.
· Help young readers through difficult issues: Graphic novels can lead young readers through difficult issues by helping them understand social-emotional themes.
For example, few people “Greek out” like George O’Connor, whose passion for helping us rediscover Greek mythology led him to his New York Times-bestselling twelve-book Olympians series. He now is turning this prowess to Norse mythology, with his brand-new Asgardians series.
The very first author event the Silver Unicorn ever hosted at their bookstore on 12 Spruce Street in Acton was with Matt Tavares. He’s been back many times since, and has written or illustrated more than twenty books, including Growing Up Pedro, Zachary’s Ball, and Hoops, which won the New England Book Award.
Lincoln Peirce is the author and illustrator of both the Big Nate and Max and the Midknights series. Both series are New York Times bestsellers and, at this point, the Big Nate series is its own cottage industry that includes a Nickelodeon/Paramount+ TV show.
When Gale Galligan was trying to get her break into writing and illustrating, the previous writer/illustrator for the Baby-Sitters Club series moved on to another series. Galligan was in the right place at the right time. She was asked to illustrate a couple of key moments from the previous series and then was asked to take it over. A lifelong Baby-sitters Club fan, Gale was featured in the Netflix documentary, “The Claudia Kishi Club.”
The author of the New York Times-bestselling Investigators series, John Patrick Green was the keynote speaker last year during the inaugural festival. His talk was one of the 2023 festival highlights, and at one point it included a group of children rushing to the stage to get one of his drawings!
Maddie Frost, an author-illustrator from Massachusetts, hosted the inside stage at the Silver Unicorn’s second annual Kids Graphic Novel Festival. She has written and illustrated eleven picture books and graphic novels, including WOMBATS! Go Camping, which was an American Library Association Best Graphic Novel of 2023.
In addition to a stage inside the store and outside the store, and an author tent, there was a third stage this year, thanks to 2024 Festival partner Danny’s Place. Mark Hoffmann hosted a Baby-Sitters Club panel that included Gale Galligan and Ellen Crenshaw, a cartoonist and illustrator whose work has been longlisted for the National Book Award and nominated for an Eisner Award — one of the most prestigious awards for graphic novels.
Not only was registration for the second annual Kids Graphic Novel Festival free, but each of the first 500 parties that arrived received a free tote bag when they checked in. This turned out to be a very practical item.
To accommodate the crowd of free-flowing pedestrian traffic between the bookstore and the third stage at Danny’s Place, Spruce Street was closed to vehicle traffic between Mass. Ave. and Arlington Street. This also made a space where ice cream, hot dogs, and grilled cheese were on sale by local businesses that chose to sponsor the Festival this year.