Big Nate is three different things sharing a name, which is why the order question is genuinely hard. There are eight illustrated novels with a running story. There are more than twenty comic-strip collections with their own numbering that has nothing to do with the novels. And there are graphic novels tied to the television series. A parent buying “book four” has a one in three chance of getting the one their child meant.

Here is how the three lines fit together.

The short answer

If you want the story, read the eight novels in order, starting with Big Nate: In a Class by Himself. Everything else is strips, and strips can be read in any order at all.

The novels, in order

These are the ones with a plot. Nate serves detention, joins a team, forms a band, ruins things. Continuity is light but real — characters and running situations carry forward — so reading these in sequence is worth doing.

  1. Big Nate: In a Class by Himself
  2. Big Nate Strikes Again
  3. Big Nate on a Roll
  4. Big Nate Goes for Broke
  5. Big Nate Flips Out
  6. Big Nate: In the Zone
  7. Big Nate Lives It Up
  8. Big Nate Blasts Off

The comic collections

These are reprints of the newspaper strip, gathered into volumes and numbered from one. They are not the novels, they do not continue the novels, and nothing is lost by reading volume nine before volume two. They are also, for a lot of readers, the more popular half of the franchise: a page is one joke, and a child can put the book down anywhere.

  1. Big Nate: From the Top
  2. Big Nate Out Loud
  3. Big Nate Makes the Grade
  4. Big Nate All Work and No Play
  5. Big Nate: Game On!
  6. Big Nate: I Can't Take It!
  7. Big Nate: Great Minds Think Alike
  8. Big Nate: The Crowd Goes Wild!

We stock fifteen of the twenty-two collections; the numbering above skips the ones we do not have. Since the order does not matter, the gaps do not either — buy whichever one is in front of you.

The TV series graphic novels

A third line, tied to the animated show:

  1. Big Nate: Destined for Awesomeness
  2. Big Nate: Prank You Very Much

These retell episodes rather than the books. A reader who came to Nate through the show will recognize them immediately; a reader who came through the novels usually finds them redundant.

Which to start with

For a child who already reads comfortably, start with the novels — there is more to hold on to. For a reluctant reader, start with a comic collection, because finishing a book is the thing that changes minds and a strip collection can be finished in an afternoon. Readers almost always end up with both.

Keep browsing

Every book above has a page in our catalog. Nate sits between two series most of his readers also read: Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Dog Man, both with full reading orders here. For more of the same, see the funniest books for tweens and graphic novels for tweens.