February 25, 2025

Congratulations to CCS alumni who made the American Library Association ALA’s Graphic Novels & Comics Round Table 2024 Best Graphic Novels for Children Reading list! 

Coco Fox ‘19 for LET’S GO, COCO!; HarperAlley.
Colleen Frakes ‘07 for KNOTS; HarperAlley.
Emma Hunsinger ‘20 for HOW IT ALL ENDS; Green Willow Books.
TillieWalden ‘16 for art for TEGAN AND SARA: CRUSH; Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Luke Healy ‘14 for color for CURLFRIENDS: NEW IN TOWN by Sharee Miller; Little, Brown Ink.

More on books by alumni: 

LET’S GO, COCO! by Coco Fox ‘19: Eleven-year-old Coco is super bummed that her best friend moved away. She awkwardly tries to make new friends by joining the basketball team. But being friends with Maddie, the bully, can be dangerous! Coco learns to be kinder to the friends who are true friends instead of trying to please Maddie.

Coco Fox ‘19 is a 2025 Visiting Artist. Coco earned an MFA from The Center for Cartoon Studies in 2019. During her time with us, she worked with CCS co-founder James Sturm on outreach efforts for the educational graphic novel, THIS IS WHAT DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE, published by CCS.  

KNOTS by Colleen Frakes ‘07: Norah and her sister Lark are tired of moving for their parents’ prison jobs. Now her mom and sister have to move for a job, and Norah struggles to care for herself while her dad works overtime. She is afraid to ask for help—even after a bad bleach job.

Colleen Frakes graduated with the inaugural class of The Center for Cartoon Studies in 2007. That same year she published her first graphic novel, TRAGIC RELIEF, after winning a Xeric Grant. In 2009, Colleen’s second graphic novel, WOMAN KING, won an Ignatz Award. In 2015, Colleen published PRISON ISLAND, a graphic memoir that tells the story of her growing up in the Pacific Northwest on McNeil Island and living in a town near its prison. When she’s not making comics, Colleen is working in a library. 

HOW IT ALL ENDS by Emma Hunsinger ‘20: 13-year-old Tara lives mostly in her own imagination. When she skips from seventh grade to high school, she doesn’t feel ready for her own life until she meets Libby.

Emma Hunsinger teaches drawing at The Center for Cartoon Studies. Her first picture book, MY PARENTS WON’T STOP TALKING, with her wife and Vermont’s fifth Cartoonist Laureate Tillie Walden ‘16 was featured on NPR’s Best Books of the Year list in 2022. While studying at CCS, Emma published her nonfiction class assignment, “How to Draw a Horse” in The New Yorker. The comic was nominated for an Eisner Award, National Magazine Award, and a National Cartoonist Society Divisional Award. 

TEGAN AND SARA: CRUSH by Tegan Quin and Sara Quin, art by Tillie Walden: Eighth grade brings new opportunities, and conflict, for budding musicians Tegan and Sara. They find themselves with a music manager and new music connections. The sisters see these changes with a different perspective and have to find a way to negotiate what it means to be themselves in the limelight.

Tillie Walden ‘16 is Vermont’s fifth Cartoonist Laureate and its youngest. She won the 2018 Eisner Award for “Best Reality-Based Work” for her graphic novel memoir SPINNING, which made her at 22 one of the youngest Eisner Award winners ever. She won another Eisner in 2020 for ARE YOU LISTENING? in the “Best Graphic Album—New Material” category.

CURLFRIENDS: NEW IN TOWN by Sharee Miller, color by Luke Healy: Charlie is starting over at a new school…again. To make friends and fit in, Charlie erases herself, pretending to be someone different, someone cool. After everything goes wrong, can Charlie find a way to make things right and be her true self?

Luke Healy ‘14 is a graduate of CCS, and was a Visiting Artist in 2019. Luke’s adventurous and introspective work has appeared in The New Yorker, BBC, and The Nib. He received the Award of Excellence from the Museum of Comics and Cartoon Art, an Ignatz Award nomination for Outstanding Minicomic, and was on the Slate Cartoonist Studio Prize shortlist. His book, AMERICANA, was selected by The Guardian as one of the best books of 2019. His first graphic novel, HOW TO SURVIVE IN THE NORTH, was named a best book of 2016 by Publishers Weekly.

Congratulations everyone!

Click here to see the complete list!