High/Low Books to Engage Striving Readers of All Ages

Many students are not reading at grade level. Help striving readers build reading stamina and stay engaged with high-interest/low-level content. The more a student reads, the better reader they will become.

This roundup highlights a wide range of dynamic titles for elementary, middle, and high school audiences. From graphic novels and celebrity biographies to survival stories and edgy YA fiction, there is something here for every interest.

In the new YA graphic novel by debut author Sofia Szamosi, readers follow Olive as she spends the summer before art school at a coveted internship helping one of the fashion industry’s elite digital-imaging specialists. After a glamourous New York photoshoot, she learns that taking pictures is only the first step andis thrown into the world of image retouching software. Soon she is fixating on her own appearance and pondering the ethics of her work behind the scenes. Unretouchable is a window into a hugely influential world of fashion photography and a tribute to self-acceptance.

Today we welcome author and illustrator Sofia Szamosi as she shares her greatest influences, the themes of the book, and what she thinks of the current fashion industry.

Earlier this month Artie and the Wolf Moon hit the shelves. In this original and empowering middle grade, Artie Irvin is thrilled to discover she comes from a line of werewolves. She asks her mom to share everything—including the story of Artie’s late father. Her mom reluctantly agrees. And to help Artie figure out her own wolflike abilities, her mom recruits some old family friends. As she learns the history of werewolves and her own parents’ past, she’ll find that wolves aren’t the scariest thing in the woods—vampires are.

Today debut graphic novelist, Olivia Stephens, joins us to share a little bit about her creative process and some exclusive early sketches.

July is Graphic Novel Month, which is the perfect time to share some sneak peeks of our Fall 21 graphic novels from Graphic Universe.

The Spy Who Raised Me by Ted Anderson and illustrated by Gianna Meola is a super-spy adventure and hilarious satire about the demands parents place on children. The story follows teenager Josie Black who can infiltrate any building and move like a martial artist. But no one told her that. When she discovers her mom secretly programmed her to be a special operative, spy family drama breaks out.

Author Ted Anderson joins us today to give us the inside scoop of how he wrote his new graphic novel!