Each book in Sarah Sax’s Brinkley Yearbooks graphic novel series (Knopf, 9–12 years) centers on a different protagonist. In the second and latest, Tryouts, athletic Al becomes the only girl on the school’s baseball team, and that’s just the beginning of a nuanced tale of teamwork. See also the Sports -- Baseball and Graphic novels tags in the Guide/Reviews Database.

1. How do you approach the world-building for a series in your creative process? When you introduce new characters, are you thinking about their deeper stories from the jump?

Photo: Elle Darcy.

Sarah Sax: Much of the media I loved the most growing up featured ensemble casts. I look to the Nickelodeon cartoon Hey Arnold! in particular as inspiration for how I’ve built out the world of this series. I always loved when I got to get a peek into the world of, say, Stinky instead of Arnold episode after episode. It made the school in that show feel vibrant, and it gave me a chance to experience a wide variety of stories. I wanted that for the world of Brinkley Middle School. Early on, I mapped out the series at a high level so I know generally what is coming for Viv, Milo, Al, and Sammi. As I write each book, I’m thinking about that map and I’m finding small ways to set each character up for their own story once I get there. And when I introduce new characters, such as Gabi or Julian or Henry, I ask myself about the stories they would want to tell if they got the chance.

2. Al’s journey between fitting in with and standing apart from her team is nonlinear. What was it like to chart her path?

SS: One of the things I’ve known about Al since Picture Day is that she is motivated by performing well on a team. In Picture Day she cares deeply about perfecting the roller-skating routine that the trio is learning and feels betrayed when Viv slacks on their practices. She is group-oriented at her core. Given that, I approached Tryouts by thinking about how Al would handle a situation in which the barrier to the thing she wants (to continue to play baseball at a high level on a team at Brinkley Middle School) isn’t just access to the team, but also her team not sharing the same values and not working well together. When I start writing a book, I don’t always know the path that my characters are going to take, but I put them in situations that upend their core beliefs and then see how they meet that challenge. Al’s journey became about learning how to build the team dynamic that she craves and feeling empowered to demand more of her teammates.

3. The friends, with their varied interests, are tightly knit. Were you a kid with one core friend group, or did you bounce around?

SS: I definitely had a close group of friends, especially in middle school. As someone who is naturally introverted (I am a Milo), that’s always been my preference. But within my orbit I had close friends who bounced around to many groups, and I was always in awe of that ability. It feels like such a superpower. I’m looking forward to exploring that dynamic more with Sammi when we get to her book.

4. You’ve worked as a museum educator and a creator of “brain-training games.” Do these experiences inform your graphic novels?

SS: The common threads that tie together my career prior to publishing are interests in human-centered stories and in children’s media. When working at Lumosity, I got to build an incredible team of artists who worked together with game developers and scientists to take rote scientific tasks and transform them into games people wanted to play. In that environment, I developed skills that prepared me for the reality of making a graphic novel. Many of the high-level skills are the same: You identify the core task of your game or the core idea of your story, you engage your user/reader using storytelling and visual cues, you learn how to solicit and interpret feedback, and you balance long production timelines that touch multiple disciplines. I learned to work collaboratively to ship a creative product without losing its heart.

As an educator, I got to work with people of all ages and backgrounds while they were learning new creative skills, which I find invigorating. I’m endlessly excited by the ways in which a group of people can take the same prompt and express themselves in wildly different ways. And self-expression can take on so many forms beyond the arts, which is underappreciated. I think about that often when I’m crafting my stories. I want readers with a wide variety of passions and interests to see themselves as creative problem solvers in the world of Brinkley — not just the ones who like to draw, like I did growing up.

5. Does teamwork make the dream work?

SS: Learning to work as a team is a skill in and of itself. And a team’s dynamic isn’t one-size-fits-all. Every group of individuals is like a unique organism, with each person bringing their own goals and challenges, which complement and clash in dynamic ways. That’s both the exciting and the frustrating thing about being part of a team — it doesn’t just meld together magically once you put on the same uniform. As Al discovers, there’s nothing worse than being on a team that isn’t functioning well, especially when you know at your core that you should be able to get the job done. But that’s the thing: Teamwork takes real work! Not everyone thrives on a team, and that’s okay too. But if it is something you desire, it is a skill set that you can build. As awful as it is to be on a bad team, there is a lot of joy and triumph to be found in finding a common goal that you can achieve together.

From the July 2024 issue of Notes from the Horn Book.