With consideration to the thousands of children who have transitioned from learning to read to reading to learn during the pandemic, how have the events of the last four years impacted reading comprehension and the middle-grade readers’ experience of reading? This session will investigate the rise of sales in graphic novels, manga, licensed character novels and stories, and comic books in relation to the drop in sales of the traditional middle-grade novel. We will also critically examine the independent bookstore’s relationship with licensed characters and media property tie-ins in terms of competing businesses like Walmart and Target and our own implicit bias against licensed character novels and stories.