It’s that time of year again–or at least it was when I wrote this post: San Diego Comic Con!

For those who may not know, San Diego Comic Con is a huge four-and-a-half day lollapalooza of an annual convention celebrating all things comics related. There are panels with authors and actors; talks about art, craft, and cosplay; an immense, exciting, crowded and noisy convention hall full of booths and stands to make any fans’ eyes grow wide with delight; gaming, autograph signing, anime, manga, and graphic novels; cosplay to knock your socks off; movie announcements and TV show previews; endlessly snaking lines; and (drum roll) the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards. Named after path-breaking graphic novel creator Will Eisner, the Eisners award the best of the best in several dozen categories. Children’s graphic novels in translation typically can be found in the obvious categories—books for young readers—and perhaps less obvious—the two translation-specific categories of international material for readers of all ages. YA/Upper YA/New Adult and crossover comics often appear here.

While a number of other graphic novel awards exist—the prestigious Harvey Awards, the Ignatz, and the Sophie Castille Awards for Comics in Translation, to name some of the most famous ones—the Eisners are arguably the best known and often called the Oscars of the comics world. The awards process starts in spring, when a panel of judges chooses the nominees, after which industry professionals receive that list and cast their electronic votes. Then, on Friday night at Comic Con, everyone finds out who won.

Every year, there are a number of excellent nominees (both translations and not). Here are the four nominated translated graphic novels for young readers that caught my eye in 2025.

CLUB MICROBE

More of an illustrated book than a graphic novel per se, Club Microbe is a fabulous, hilarious introduction for middle grade readers to the wonderful world of microorganisms. Gravel’s joy in addressing her chosen topic leaps off the page from the very start. “I’ve been waiting to write a book on microbes (or germs). They’re so fun to DRAW. I find them beautiful and FASCINATING. Microbes are living beings, but they aren’t animals, or plants, or insects. They don’t have legs, brains, mouths, or eyes. (Except in my drawings.)” She goes on to talk about sizes and numbers, germs that cause disease, create bread and cheese, help create snowflakes, decompose dead matter, and glow in the dark, as well as how to avoid getting sick from germs (washing hands and vaccinations). The book is free of euphemisms and delightfully long Latin names abound throughout.

A riot of colors and whimsical shapes, Club Microbe will make germaphobes shudder and budding microbiologists do cartwheels. And readers at either extreme as well as all points between will find this fun book fascinating and insidiously educational.

Nominated for Best Publication for Early Readers

THE JELLYFISH

Graphic novels excel at dealing with difficult topics and The Jellyfish does so beautifully.

In this critically acclaimed Canadian import for upper YA readers, 20-year-old Odette works in a bookstore, has a pet rabbit, lives on their own and is struggling to figure out their place in the world. One day, though, they discover a blob in their left eye. It’s a floater—the jellyfish of the title. Initially a frustrating distraction, it’s only visible internally. But then the jellyfish starts to multiply, obscuring Odette’s vision. They start a romance with Naine, who is escaping an abusive family life, but all the while, the jellyfish continue to increase.

The author brings the reader along through Odette’s journey in learning to deal with their growing disability with great empathy, depth, and sensitivity.

Nominated for Best U.S. Edition of International Material

ALL PRINCESSES DIE AT DAWN

In this melancholy slice-of-life graphic novel imported from France for
upper YA readers, we encounter three couples in various stages of relationships. Young Lulu likes to pretend to be a princess, has a crush on his best friend, and is figuring out that he’s gay. His high school sister, Cam, hides the fact that her much-older boyfriend is sneaking into her window and pushing her to have sex with him. Their mother sadly watches her husband, who is having an affair, get ready to leave the family. The death of Princess Di serves as a backdrop, the other princess of the book.

This all sounds dreary, but it isn’t, perhaps in large part due to the beautiful, dreamy illustrations, which make everything the characters are going through much more bearable.

Nominated for Best U.S. Edition of International Material

KAGURABACHI, Vol. 1

The first in a multi-volume upper YA/New A/crossover manga series, Kagurabachi is the story of Chihiro Rokuhira, whose blacksmith father Kunishige created seven enchanted swords that helped end the Seitei War. At the start of the book, the two have been hiding from enemies, but the powerful Hishaku sorcerers find Kunishige and murder him. Chihiro wields his father’s enchanted sword, Enten. As he learns its capacities, he seeks to avenge his father’s death and recover the other swords.

An immensely successful manga, Kagurabachi is filled with magic, sorcery, abuse, battles, boatloads of violence, villains, rescues, victims, and, of course, our hero. While not for the squeamish or the faint of heart, its plot is both complicated and incredibly hard to put down.

Nominated for Best U.S. Edition of International Material—Asia

As I write this, it’s Comic Con eve. Tomorrow, the hordes will descend on San Diego by train, plane, bus, trolley, and car–including me. By the time you read this in September for WorldKid Lit Month, though, the winners will long since have been announced. But I recommend you resist the temptation to peek and see who won! Google the list of nominees and read through the ones that intrigue you, including the four above. Then, and only then, look at the list of winners and see if your favs grabbed the brass ring–or in this case, the Eisner.

Club Microbe
Written and illustrated by Elise Gravel
Translated from the French by Montana Kane
ISBN: 978-1770467026
2024, Drawn & Quarterly

The Jellyfish
Written and illustrated by Boum (the nom de plume of Samantha Leriche-Gionet)
Translated from the French by Robin Lang and Helge Dascher
ISBN: 978-2925114307
2024, Editions Pow Pow

All Princesses Die Before Dawn
Written and illustrated by Quentin Zuttion
Translated from the French by M.B. Valente
ISBN:978-1419776649
2024, Abrams Comic Arts

Kagurabachi, vol. 1
Written and illustrated by Takeru Hokazono
Translated from the Japanese by Camellia Nieh
ISBM: 978-1-9747-4724-5
2024, Viz Media (Shonen Jump)

Award-winning opera singer Nanette McGuinness is the translator of over 130 books and graphic novels for children and adults from French, Italian, German and Spanish into English, including the much-loved Geronimo Stilton Graphic Novels, as well as Tiki: A Very Ruff Year (nominated for the 2023 Eisner and Harvey Awards) and Alice on the Run: One Child’s Journey Through the Rwandan Civil War (2023 GLLI YA Translated Book Prize Honor Book, 2023 Mosaic Prize winner, 2023 Excellence in Graphic Literature Finalist and 2023 Harvey Award nominee). Accolades have also gone to her translations of Ellie in First Position (2024 ALA Top Ten Graphic Novels for Children), Magical History Tour: Vikings and Magical History Tour: Gandhi (both 2023 Excellence in Graphic Literature Finalists), Luisa: Now and Then (2019 Stonewall Honor Book; 2020 GLLI YA Translated Honor Book; YALSA’s Great Graphic Novels for Teens in 2019) and California Dreamin’: Cass Elliot Before the Mamas & the Papas (2018 Harvey Award; YALSA’s Great Graphic Novels for Teens in 2018).