Eighth Grade

• Life Science
• Environment & Ecology
• Comics / Graphic Narrative

Why it works: The Way of the Hive gives newly emerged honeybee Nyuki questions about metamorphosis, queens, honey, work, predators, and the inner drive to leave the colony. Her lifelong coming-of-age journey makes each age-linked hive role and risky flight a stage in becoming an experienced worker bee.

• Earth Science
• Comics / Graphic Narrative

Why it works: Science Comics: Rocks and Minerals pairs a crystal-obsessed fan with a famous rock hunter for a journey from a volcano summit into Earth's interior and out to meteorites in space. Their expedition turns composition, crystal properties, and planet-shaping processes into clues about where each specimen came from.

• Life Science
• Environment & Ecology
• Comics / Graphic Narrative

Why it works: Science Comics: Spiders recruits a sister and brother to help a talking spider find her missing child across habitats from a backyard to the Australian Outback. Each encounter uses a new spider's body, web, behavior, and ecological job to overturn the travelers' fear and move the global search forward.

• Engineering & Technology
• Physics & Energy
• Comics / Graphic Narrative

Why it works: Science Comics: Skyscrapers sends a pair of superheroes from ancient monumental structures to the world's tallest modern buildings to uncover how height became possible. Their graphic investigation makes loads, wind, foundations, materials, and human ingenuity the forces behind every engineering leap.