17 manga and anime series for elementary school

The ones my kids are loving and some resources to get you started

Every time I mention manga, the questions come roaring in — understandably so.

It’s a text category many of us didn’t grow up reading, and reviews can be hard to find and inconsistent. Meanwhile, the kids are begging for it — probably daily — and we’re scrambling to catch up.

Last spring, I received a grant to begin a manga collection at my elementary school library. While I’m not an expert (yet!), today I’m sharing the titles I’ve added so far that my kids are loving, as well as some resources to get you headed in the right direction.

When writing my grant, I combed the archives and selected only manga titles that had been reviewed by SLJ either online or in a print edition, with a recommended age range that included fifth grade or below (many on this list are recommended for 5th and up). While I hope to expand my manga collection beyond those that got reviewed in SLJ, this felt like a risk-averse place to start. (The age recommendations printed on manga can often diverge from the selection standards I would use for my elementary school library, particularly in terms of level of violence depicted on the page.)

First, let’s take a moment to define our terms. Manga are Japanese-style graphic novels, with right-to-left formatting. Anime is a cartooning style used in manga, cartoons, and also in some graphic novels printed in the left-to-right format that is traditional to the Western publishing market.

Now, let’s get to the books.

Here are 17 manga and anime series to consider for your elementary school readers: