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The 2016 Eisner Award nominees have been announced! The list is substantial with many different categories, and includes many worthy writers and artists.

The category that I will comment on is the “Best Publication for Teens (ages 13-17)”, as I am a teen librarian, and am familiar with five of the six nominees. The books are:

Awkward, by Svetlana Chmakova (Yen Press)

The author has illustrated manga novels in the past, and the illustrations for this story are obviously manga inspired. Awesome story about middle schoolers and the anxiety of fitting in and later acceptance they find in peer groups. Definitely worth the award nomination.

Drowned City: Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans, by Don Brown (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

Non-fiction novel that shows youth who were born after this catastrophe, how “a weather disaster became a race disaster” in New Orleans during and after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Totally deserves this nomination.

March: Book Two, by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell (Top Shelf/IDW)

This sequel continues to show an accurate representation of what many African Americans faced during the Civil Rights era, told from the perspective of John Lewis, a Congressman, who fought for equality and continues to do so. Another worthy non-fiction nominee in displaying a part of our recent history that youth should be familiar with.

Moose, by Max de Radiguès (Conundrum)

I am not familiar with this book, as it is  translated from French and won’t be available in the US until next month. The description about bullying and revenge sounds intriguing though.

Oyster War, by Ben Towle (Oni)

A surprisingly long book for younger readers, this historical fiction/fantasy story with pirates and mythical selkies, set in the Chesapeake Bay, is an adventure book that has the potential to be a hit. Is it worth a nomination? That remains to be seen.

SuperMutant Magic Academy, by Jillian Tamaki (Drawn & Quarterly)

This book is a collection of the strips that the author had online about mutants and witches attending high school together and all the teenage angst that goes along with it. I skimmed this novel, as I read a previous GN by this author, This One Summer, and did not like it.  IMO, this book doesn’t deserve the nomination, but I’m probably in the minority on that thought.

Check out the list yourself: http://www.comic-con.org/awards/2016-eisner-award-nominees and see if your favorite authors and illustrators earned a coveted nomination! If they are not on the list, who would you have liked to see on it instead?

-Nancy