Posted in: Comics | Tagged: Agent, graphic novel, misa saburi, rebecca donnelly

Nature's Design Challenge, Rebecca Donnelly Misa Saburi's First Comic

Published Mon, 08 Mar 2021 05:00:55 -0600

Nature's Design Challenge written by Rebecca Donnelly and drawn by Misa Saburi, is a middle-grade graphic nonfiction series about biomimicry, in which animal contestants in a Shark Tank-style game show pitch designs and products based on their own physical or behavioural adaptations. And it has now been bought as a three-book series by Julia Sooy at Henry Holt/Godwin for publication in the spring of 2023.

Nature's Design Challenge, Rebecca Donnelly Misa Saburi's First Comic

Donnelly and Saburi previously worked together on the recent Cats Are A Liquid and How Slippery Is A Banana Peel but this will be their first comic book together. Donnelly tweeted "I am *so* excited to have another project in the works with @MisaSaburi! We're doing comics now!! I pitched this idea to my editor last summer as a NF picture book, but my sample was written mostly in speech bubbles. She came back to me and said, how about I take this to acquisitions as graphic nonfiction, meaning a longer book. I said OK & they bought it as a 3-book series!"

Molly Ker Hawn at the Bent Agency represented Rebecca Donnelly, and Lori Kilkelly at LK Literary represented Misa Saburi,

Godwin Books is an imprint of Henry Holt Books for Young Readers, run by Laura Godwin. Julia Sooy specialises in narrative nonfiction, picture books, middle grade and teen fiction and states that she is looking for "playful science writing that celebrates wonder, feminist biographies, adventures of the fantastical or real-life variety, character-driven historical fiction."

Henry Holt and Company is an American book publishing company based in New York City and one of the oldest publishers in the United States. It was founded in 1866 by Henry Holt and Frederick Leypold and currently, the company publishes in the fields of American and international fiction, biography, history and politics, science, psychology, and health, as well as books for children's literature. In the US, it operates under Macmillan Publishers.

The Bent Agency recently sold Oli Franey's debut graphic novel, Monster Crush, to Dark Horse Comics, Cait May and Trevor Bream's Another Kind graphic novel to HarperAlley and Jessica Olien's middle-grade graphic novel debut, Fox Hall, to Henry Holt Books For Younger People, Samantha Benc's Last Ship To Mars to Henry Holt and The Inflatables to Scholastic.