At first glance, the cover of “Weirdo” looks like a superhero comic book, with the cover depicting a boy wearing a cape. And when you open it, the colorful panel illustrations introduce main character Tony as “The Hero.” But “Weirdo” isn’t just a story of a caped hero fighting villains – it’s a book about mental health. For author Tony Weaver Jr., the story at the center of the middle-grade graphic novel is one he lived.
“It’s a memoir that chronicles my personal experience overcoming depression and anxiety, and learning how to love myself as a nerdy middle school boy,” he said.
Youth mental health is at a crisis, with increasing percentages of youth depression and anxiety, and suicide is the second leading cause of death among teens and young adults (ages 10-34), according to a 2022 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“For me as a suicide survivor, who was very positively impacted by stories, I felt that stories could be a positive force to help kids love themselves a bit more,” Weaver said. “Growing up in a world that makes it very difficult to love yourself sometimes, ‘Weirdo’ is intended to be a helping hand for every person on their journey to self-love.”
Weaver notes that a lot of kids start this journey in elementary and middle school, so the book is geared to them – but, he said, “there are a lot of fully grown adults that haven’t taken that journey yet. So, it’s structured in a way where if you pick it up as an adult, I’m sure you’ll find something in there.”
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Taking to social media to elevate diverse stories and discourse about and within the nerd community, Weaver wants folks to reevaluate perceived notions about where good stories come from.
“We live in a world where very important stories can often go unheard if you don’t present yourself as a person that’s worth listening to,” he said. “As a young Black man, I’m constantly thinking to myself, ‘how do I let people know that I’m a person worth being heard?’ That my stories are ones that have value.”
In a 2015 study by the Cooperative Children’s Book Center at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, books about Black, Indigenous and people of color made up less than 10% of the U.S. market. This study was referenced in a baseline report of the publishing industry by Lee and Low books. Though there has been a steady increase over the last decade, the CCBC reports that U.S. children’s books in 2024 where the main character is non-white was less than 40% and was on the decline from the year before.
Weaver says low national literacy rates is just one of the negative impacts of under- and misrepresentation in books – and that, like he did as a child, kids will notice the pattern of not seeing someone who looks like them in media, and it affects them at an early age.
It’s also why stories where children can see themselves reflected as the main character are so important; it’s about the impact, Weaver says. He saw this and more as he toured schools around the country for “Weirdo.”
