Timid: A Graphic Novel

A semiautobiographical middle-grade graphic novel about frenemies, fitting in, and finding your voice.

Cecil Hall and his family have just moved from Florida to Massachusetts, near Boston. Cecil is anxious about making friends because he doesn't know where he'll fit in. His older sister, Leah, thinks he should befriend the other black kids at his new school, but Cecil isn't sure how he’d go about doing that. He wants to be known for his comics-making talent, anyway. But the few kids who are impressed by Cecil's art aren’t always nice to him. When one of his drawings is misused and gets him into serious trouble, can Cecil stand up for himself and figure out who his real friends are?

Jonathan Todd is a cofounder of the Boston Kids Comics Fest and former second-grade teacher. He was a Jacqueline Woodson Fellow in the Solstice MFA in Creative Writing program at Lasell University, where he studied writing for children and young adults. A frequent comics teacher in children’s and young adult departments in libraries and schools, Jonathan was the 2015 Graphic Novelist-in-Residence at the Morse Institute and Bacon Free libraries near Boston. Before writing and drawing graphic novels for kids, Jonathan studied journalism and illustration at Syracuse University and English and history at Emory University. He was also an education reporter and political cartoonist. His cartoons have appeared in dozens of newspapers, including the Boston Globe, the Tennessean, and the Cincinnati Enquirer. He lives near Boston with his wife, two children, and an irresistible lemon beagle named Cariño.