Join Elise Gravel as she explores the science of some of nature's weirdest and wildest characters—mushrooms! Elise Gravel is back with a whimsical look at one of her family’s most beloved pastimes: mushroom hunting! Combining her love of getting out into nature with her talent for anthropomorphizing everything, Gravel takes us on a magical tour of the forest floor and examines a handful of her favorite alien specimens up close. While the beautiful coral mushroom looks like it belongs under the sea, the peculiar lactarius indigo may be better suited for outer space! From the fun-to-stomp puffballs to the prince of the stinkers—the stinkhorn mushroom—and the musically inclined chanterelles, Gravel shares her knowledge of this fascinating kingdom by bringing each species to life in full felt-tip marker glory. Governor General award winning author Elise Gravel’s first book with Drawn & Quarterly, If Found...Please Return to Elise Gravel, was a Junior Library Guild selection, and instant hit among librarians, parents, and kids alike. Fostering the same spirit of creativity and curiosity, The Mushroom Fan Club promises to inspire kids to look more closely at the world around them and seek out all of life’s little treasures, stinky or not!

Don’t take the title as a metaphor: it really is the worst book ever. Governor General Literary Award winning children’s book author and illustrator Elise Gravel takes readers on an unexpected journey through the world’s most boring book. The story’s characters and omniscient readers alike quickly become annoyed by the author’s bland imagination and rebel against her tired tropes and stale character choices, spouting sass in an attempt to get her attention and steer the narrative in a more interesting direction. After all, you don’t even have to buy the book, but the characters? They’re stuck in there for an eternity, and they’re going to do their best to make the most of it, or at least have a little fun where they can. As the charming and bizarre true nature of the characters overpowers the dry attributes given to them by the author, this once blasé story quickly picks up speed, transforming the story into something much more unique than originally promised. With Gravel’s signature goofy characters behind the wheel, no silly twist or rude body function is off the table!

In The Bug Club, Elise Gravel shares all her favourite and most interesting facts about these marvelous creatures, some of which are so unique and strange, you could almost imagine them living in outer space! Most people know that spiders have eight eyes, but what about the caterpillar? These little critters have them beat with a whopping twelve! Did you know mosquitoes are attracted to smelly feet? That the honey bee has hair on her eyeballs? That butterfly feet double as noses? And grasshoppers have ears on their bellies? These are just some of the many things about bugs that make them endlessly enchanting. Elise’s inquisitiveness and charm pop off the page as she takes us on a walk through her mind—and the awe-inspiring natural wonders that exist right outside our doorsteps. If you’re curious what the inside of a slug looks like, The Bug Club has you covered. Not only does Elise answer these burning questions, but she draws it all beautifully and brightly in her signature cartoony style. The followup to her award-winning The Mushroom Fan Club, where Elise shares her delightful and family-friendly mushroom hunting adventures, The Bug Club offers more activities and fun for the whole family. This time, the treasure is hiding just below a rock or that pile of fresh fall leaves.

Welcome to the charming world of cartoonist Elise Gravel's Notebook, where her imagination runs wild with creatures of all shapes and sizes In the outrageously amusing If Found..., Elise Gravel offers readers a sneak peek into her sketchbook, where colorful monsters, imaginary friends, a grumpy things reign supreme. Meet Donald, who sings off-key; Francine, who likes to eat stones; and Marvin, the man with lots of stuff in his beard. Mixing the real with the fantastical, Elise’s drawings exude curiosity, as microbes and mushrooms share the page with speckled pepperpops, gloppers, and floofs. Filled to the brim with vibrant felt marker illustrations, If Found... is not just an exhibition of Gravel’s work, but a challenge to young artists to keep a daily sketchbook. She reveals her top tips to becoming a successful illustrator–practice! practice! practice!–while empowering young artists to face their fears of making “ugly drawings.” Stop worrying about what makes a drawing good or bad—Elise draws anything and everything and you can too! Translated from the French by Shira Adriance.

In Club Microbe, Elise Gravel teaches young readers that germs live all around us—and even inside of us! Guided by Gravel in this formidable introduction to the fascinating world of microorganisms, we learn that some microbes get a bad rep for making us sick, but that most are helpful creatures that allow us to digest food, make cheese, and even enable snowflakes to form in winter. In her signature colorful cartoon style, Gravel describes the invisible work of microorganisms that aid in creating our food, producing oxygen, and keeping our planet alive. She gives us a tour of the heroes and the villains of the microbe world, stopping to marvel at their unique names and wondrous shapes. Following the perennial success of The Mushroom Fan Club and The Bug Club, this latest installment of the hit science-focused collection will deepen readers’ curiosity for all aspects of the natural world. A whimsical primer on the microscopic life that surrounds us, Club Microbe is sure to pique the interest (and imagination!) of any young scientist. Translated by Montana Kane.

The Cambridge History of the Graphic Novel provides the complete history of the graphic novel from its origins in the nineteenth century to its rise and startling success in the twentieth and twenty-first century. It includes original discussion on the current state of the graphic novel and analyzes how American, European, Middle Eastern, and Japanese renditions have shaped the field. Thirty-five leading scholars and historians unpack both forgotten trajectories as well as the famous key episodes, and explain how comics transitioned from being marketed as children's entertainment. Essays address the masters of the form, including Art Spiegelman, Alan Moore, and Marjane Satrapi, and reflect on their publishing history as well as their social and political effects. This ambitious history offers an extensive, detailed and expansive scholarly account of the graphic novel, and will be a key resource for scholars and students.