Never in my life did I anticipate Lincoln Peirce’s Big Nate would become one of the best-selling series of kids graphic novels, and a personal favorite of my son throughout first, second and third grade! As a young strapping lad, I churned the butter, kindled the fire, and used the outhouse while reading Big Nate as a comic strip alongside Peanuts, Pickles and Dilbert (I’m still trying to untangle how Dilbert became preposterously popular among my 5th grade friends in the late 90s, but that’s a story for another time). This isn’t a knock on Peirce or Big Nate – I just never guessed the strip would re-enter my life 20+ years later as an absolute comics juggernaut!
The Big Nate comic strip debuted in 1991 and enjoyed plenty of success before really exploding to another level when Peirce released the first Big Nate novelization in 2010. This means new readers effectively have the choice to start with the classic comic strips, or with a series of illustrated chapter books, a la the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. While I’m loathe to recommend literally anything over comics, the 8 book novel series (which, let’s be real, is also full of comics broken up by slightly longer blocks of text) is a more focused narrative with a clearer sense of building off the previous volume. The comic strips are very easily accessible, but more in the model of Calvin and Hobbes where virtually any strip could be your first because that was the daily newspaper environment they were working in (newspapers, kids, are like TikToks that we printed out and then used to wrap Christmas presents). For most kids, whether they start with the novels or comics, once they get a taste of Big Nate’s world, they’re going to want to hop between formats to laugh at more.
Regardless of your approach, Nate Wright’s 6th grade antics are a highly entertaining way to encourage a 6 to 11 year old audience to read more. Plus, there are now animated TV series and a musical. Below you’ll find a complete guide to the world of Big Nate, from novels to graphic novels to comic strips to Lincoln Peirce written fantasy comics! [Read more…] about Big Nate Reading Order