Can a poem be drawn? Explore the beautiful, funny, and profound spaces where words and pictures meet.
In Poetry Comics, author-illustrator Grant Snider offers a brilliant collection of poems for middle-grade readers, perfectly suited for ages 8 to 12. Using a vibrant graphic novel format, the book guides readers through the four seasons, finding poetic wonder in ordinary moments. ather than a single plot, it is a series of thoughtful observations on everything from springtime clouds and building blocks to lost bicycles and unscuffed shoes. Snider’s work beautifully demonstrates that poetry is all around us, waiting to be created from the small, everyday details of life, making the genre feel fresh, modern, and deeply personal.
This book is ideal for educators working with reluctant readers, English language learners, or students who struggle with dense text. Its comic-style format provides powerful visual scaffolding: a student can follow the emotional arc of a poem through a character’s illustrated expressions rather than relying on complex vocabulary. The language is deliberately accessible, using very simple sentence structures, short lines, and minimal confusing idiomatic phrases. This high-interest, low-readability approach has earned the book significant acclaim, including starred reviews from Kirkus and Publishers Weekly and selection as a 2025 ALA Notable Book. Poetry Comics is an outstanding choice because it validates sophisticated feelings and observations in a format that empowers, rather than discourages, developing readers.
