Buzzing (A Graphic Novel)
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3.3 • 3 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
ALA 2025 Rainbow Book List Pick • 2024 Eisner-Nominated for Best Publication for Kids • A 2024 ALA Notable Children's Book • New York Public Library Best Book of 2023
★ "Heartwarming [and] authentic" —Shelf Awareness, starred review
A moving middle grade graphic novel about friendship, belonging, and learning to love yourself despite the voices in your head.
Isaac Itkin can’t get away from his thoughts.
As a lonely twelve-year-old kid with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), everything from studying to looking in the mirror becomes a battle between him and a swarm of unhelpful thoughts.
The strict therapy his mother insists on doesn’t seem to be working, but when a group of friends invites him to join their after-school role-playing game, the thoughts feel a little less loud, and the world feels a little brighter.
But Isaac’s therapist says that exposure to games can have negative effects on kids with OCD, and when his grades slip, his helicopter mother won’t let him play anymore. Now Isaac needs to find a way to prove to himself, to his mother, and to the world that the way to quiet the noise in his head may have been inside him all along.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Because of the intrusive thoughts and compulsions—visually rendered as an ever-present swarm of bullying cartoon bees—that characterize his recently diagnosed obsessive-compulsive disorder, 12-year-old Isaac, portrayed with brown skin, has been feeling overwhelmed and isolated. So he's delighted when classmates, impressed by his drawings of dragons and other mythical creatures, invite him to join their Swamps & Sorcery RPG group. Isaac finds that he loves the game and that hanging out with his intersectionally diverse new friends—and developing romantic feelings for white and freckled nonbinary peer Micah—helps reduce the frequency of his symptoms. But Isaac's mother worries that these new experiences will have a negative effect on his mental health, and Isaac's older sister Miriam feels ignored because of their mother's focus on Isaac. Palette shifts between blue/gray tones and full-color sequences respectively depict Isaac's everyday life managing his OCD alongside moments of joy and calm, such as interactions with his friends and fantastical scenes from the tweens' RPG. Via Isaac's nuanced relationships with classmates, family, and himself, collaborators Sattin and Hickman (Bezkamp, for adults) conceive a cleverly rendered interpretation of OCD embedded in a wholesome graphic novel drama. Ages 8–12.
