Gender Queer creator Maia Kobabe’s next graphic novel will arrive from Scholastic in 2025, according to a report on Publisher’s Weekly. Kobabe will team with artist Lucky Srikumar for Saachi’s Stories, a middle-grade graphic novel being released through Scholastic’s Graphix imprint.
“I have sold my second book!” Kobabe said on Tumblr. “It’s called Saachi’s Stories and I wrote it with my wonderful, smart, hot, funny, talented friend @diamoric-comix! It’s due out from Scholastic Graphix in 2025. It’s fiction, and it’s aimed at a younger audience than Gender Queer but it is once again about a character wrestling with gender, identity and sexuality, this time in the crucible of junior high. I am really excited about this book, and can’t wait to share it with you in a couple more years.”
PW described it as such: “The coming-of-age middle-grade graphic novel follows aspiring author Saachi, who struggles to navigate changing social dynamics and her evolving identity, as her friends start coupling up and everybody else seems to fit neatly into a boy/girl binary.”
Kobabe’s previous graphic novel, Gender Queer, was published by Lion Forge in 2019, with a new edition released last year by Oni Lion Forge. It’s won several awards since and has been targeted by conservatives in their efforts to ban LGBTQ+ content from schools and libraries. This LA Times profile of Kobabe goes deep into the censorship campaign that’s been waged against it. I’d also point you to this recent essay by Kobabe that appeared on NPR. An effort to declare Gender Queer obscene in Virginia and keep it out of Barnes & Noble and other bookstores was not successful.