The Jones Library welcomes award-winning graphic novelist Jonathan Todd on May 8 at 4pm for a comics-making workshop tied to his 2024 graphic novel, Timid! Attendees will create their own biographical comics during this hands-on session.

Timid is a semi-autobiographical middle-grade graphic novel about frenemies, fitting in, and finding your voice. With vibrant illustrations and relatable action, we follow middle-schooler Cecil Hall as he moves across the country, builds new friendships, and navigates pre-teen growing pains.

​​This Mass Kids Lit Fest event is presented in partnership with the Massachusetts Center for the Book. For a full schedule, please visit https://www.makidslitfest.org/.

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.