Big Nate Reading Level: Every Novel, Lexile and ATOS
By Jimmy VeeShare
Here's the number, and then the thing that actually matters.
The eight Big Nate novels run ATOS 2.8 to 3.3 and Lexile GN420L to GN520L.
But Renaissance files every one of them at interest level grades 4 to 8.
Read those two lines together. A third-grade reading level, aimed at middle schoolers.
That combination has a name in schools, and it's the whole reason this series matters.
I'm Jimmy Vee. I write funny picture books and I've performed for kids for thirty years. Everything here comes from Renaissance Accelerated Reader BookFinder, the same database your school's AR program uses.
Big Nate reading levels, the eight novels
| # | Title | Year | Lexile | ATOS | Words | Pages |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Big Nate: In a Class by Himself | 2010 | 520L | 3.1 | 13,810 | 214 |
| 2 | Big Nate Strikes Again | 2010 | GN430L | 3.0 | 14,342 | 216 |
| 3 | Big Nate on a Roll | 2011 | GN440L | 2.9 | 14,077 | 216 |
| 4 | Big Nate Goes for Broke | 2012 | GN450L | 3.1 | 14,101 | 216 |
| 5 | Big Nate Flips Out | 2013 | GN420L | 2.8 | 14,013 | 216 |
| 6 | Big Nate: In the Zone | 2014 | GN470L | 3.1 | 14,811 | 216 |
| 7 | Big Nate Lives It Up | 2015 | GN520L | 3.3 | 15,778 | 216 |
| 8 | Big Nate Blasts Off | 2016 | GN460L | 3.3 | 15,814 | 218 |
Every one of the eight is worth 2.0 AR points.
All eight by Lincoln Peirce. The novel line ran 2010 to 2016 and stopped at Blasts Off.
This is a hi-lo book, and that's the point
High interest, low level. Teachers and librarians call it hi-lo, and it's one of the hardest things to find.
Picture the problem.
You've got a sixth grader reading at a third-grade level. Hand them something at their reading level and it's about a talking bunny.
They will not be seen with it.
Big Nate solves that.
The sentences sit around third grade. The kid on the cover is in sixth.
The jokes are detention, bad teachers, school dances, and being convinced you're a genius when you're clearly not.
Nothing about it looks remedial.
That's a design achievement, not an accident. It's why Big Nate turns up on so many classroom shelves.
If you're choosing for an older reader who has fallen behind, this is one of the first series I'd reach for.
The novels and the comic books are not the same thing
This trips people up, and the titles do not help.
The novels. Eight books, 2010 to 2016.
Around 14,000 to 15,800 words. 214 to 218 pages. Every one worth 2.0 AR points. Real chapters with cartoons running through them.
The comic collections. Reprinted newspaper strips. Same character, same author, much less text. Almost all of them are 1.0 AR point.
Here's the catch. Some collections have novel-sounding names.
Payback Time and Goes Bananas both read like sequels. They're collections. Both 1.0 point. Both about 9,000 words.
If you're counting AR points or looking for the actual story, the eight in that table are the novels. Anything else is a comic book, and there are a lot of them.
The series barely moves, then nudges up at the end
Books 1 through 6 sit between ATOS 2.8 and 3.1. No pattern, just noise.
Books 7 and 8 both come in at 3.3, and they're also the longest, at 15,778 and 15,814 words.
So there's a small step up at the end. Small. Half a grade level across six years.
A reader who managed book 1 is fine through book 8.
One footnote for the detail people.
Book 1 carries a plain 520L. Books 2 through 8 all carry the GN graphic-novel code.
I'm reporting it as the database has it, not tidying up an inconsistency that belongs to Renaissance.
What GN means here
Most of these Lexiles start with GN, which means graphic novel, which means the measure only read the text.
Big Nate novels are full of cartoon panels. The measure skipped all of them.
So the number understates what a kid is actually doing. They're reading prose and they're reading comics, and only one of those got counted.
Use these to compare Big Nate books to each other. Not to compare Big Nate to a prose novel.
What the numbers won't tell you
Nate Wright is loud, overconfident, lousy at school and certain he's destined for greatness. He gets detention constantly. He is not a role model and the books know it.
Some parents bounce off that. Plenty of kids see themselves in it, which is rather the point.
What I'll say is what I say about every series on this site. The level tells you whether a child can read it. It doesn't tell you whether they'll want to.
But for a kid who's been handed easy books that feel like an insult, a series that reads at their level and looks like their age is not a small thing.
That's the difference between reading and pretending to.
Related
- Captain Underpants reading levels, grades 4 to 8 and considerably harder
- Dog Man reading levels, every book with Lexile and ATOS
- Magic Tree House reading levels and Junie B. Jones reading levels
- Funny books for reluctant readers
Sources: Lexile measures, ATOS levels, word counts, AR points, interest levels and page counts are from Renaissance Accelerated Reader BookFinder, retrieved September 16, 2026.