Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Agent, First Day Fiasco, graphic novel, groundhog day, henry holt, Miguelina Milien, Sarah Kapit
Sarah Kapit and Miguelina Milien sells publishing rights to their Groundhog Day middle-grade autistic tween graphic novel, First Day Fiasco
Article Summary
- First Day Fiasco is a Groundhog Day-style middle-grade graphic novel about autistic tween Ellie Goldberg reliving seventh grade.
- Sarah Kapit and Miguelina Milien sold First Day Fiasco to Henry Holt, with publication currently scheduled for spring 2028.
- Ellie must repeat her first day again and again, trying to avoid meltdowns, mistakes, and total embarrassment.
- First Day Fiasco pairs Kapit’s neurodiverse storytelling with Milien’s comics art for a lively middle-grade read.
Sarah Kapit and Miguelina Milien have sold the publication rights to their time loop Groundhog Day-style middle-grade graphic novel First Day Fiasco. Which follows autistic tweenager Ellie Goldberg, who gets stuck in a time loop on her first day of seventh grade and has to try again and again to avoid losing her cool or embarrassing herself. Jennifer Laughran at Andrea Brown Literary Agency represented the author; Aliza Hoover at the CAT Agency represented the illustrator and Dana Chidiac, while at Henry Holt, acquired the rights and Kortney Nash will edit. Publication is planned for spring 2028.
Sarah Kapit has spent her career writing about what she calls autistic kids who want things, rather than autistic kids who exist as object lessons. Get a Grip, Vivy Cohen! from Dial back in 2020 was an epistolary baseball novel about an 11-year-old pitcher with a major-league pen pal. The Many Mysteries of the Finkel Family, from Dial in 2021, follows two autistic sisters who run a detective agency; one of them uses a tablet to communicate. She has also written the Rachel Friedman chapter books for Holt and Second Chance Summer. Kapit holds a PhD in history from UCLA, has been involved in disability rights and neurodiversity organising, and has said she writes so that autistic and Jewish kids can find themselves on the page without being reduced to a checklist of traits. Miguelina Milien is an Afro-Latine illustrator and comic artist born and raised in New York, a graduate of Art and Design High School and the School of Visual Arts.
Aliza Hoover came out of Candlewick illustrator searches and specialises in visual storytelling. Jennifer Laughran is a senior agent at Andrea Brown and a longtime children’s bookseller with a track record in quirky middle grade and graphic novels. Kortney Nash, assistant editor at Godwin Books/Henry Holt, has worked on the middle-grade graphic novel Oasis and has said she looks for marginalised voices in stories that still let kids have fun or step into the paranormal.
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