This is an automatic buy if your library already has Awkward in the collection. Such as Akilah and Jenny having a huge fight, the Art Club getting excited over an author visit to the school, and Felicity (Art Club friend) getting suspended from school for wearing a short skirt in her Sailor Sunburst cosplay. There are other subplots that run through this graphic novel that really gives other characters depth and help to move the plot forward. This is when Jensen starts to realize he is getting bullied, and he doesn’t like it.

They are conducting a survey on the lizard brain’s bullying effect on middle schoolers. Always wanting to help, Jensen assists when they need him and eventually gets roped into Akilah and Jenny’s science project on human behavior. When Jensen is running away from the bullies he takes refuge in the Newspaper Club’s classroom introducing us to Akilah, Jenny, and Felipe. Jensen just wants what most people want which is to be appreciated for who he is and to have a group where he belongs.Īs we follow Jensen through his daily routine, we see familiar faces like Peppi and Jaime (main characters from Awkward). Even some of his friends in Art Club could stand to be nicer to him. But he’s often not as heroic in real life as he gets bullied by Yanic and Foster. What Jensen really wants is to be a hero as he daydreams how to save his friends from zombie apocalypses to natural disasters. He still thinks sunspots will cause the destruction of the earth, but we also get more character depth. You may remember Jensen as a background character obsessed with sunspots in Awkward. Brave is the follow up book to Awkward and follows the life of Jensen Graham in Berrybrook Middle School. If your library has Svetlana Chmakova’s book Awkward then Brave is an automatic addition to your middle grade graphic novel collection.

Brave chmakova