Comic Format for Emerging Readers

More publishers are coming out with books in comic format for those readers from age 4 to 8. Art Spiegleman has come out with Jack in the Box from Toon. Toon is an imprint of Raw Junior LLC. In 1992 Art Spiegleman won a Pulitzer Prize Special Award for Maus: a Survivors Story. Maus is often used in high schools to study the Holocaust, but Maus is an example of the quality of the Toon books. Stinky by Eleanor Davis is a 2009 Theodor Seuss Geisel honor award book from Toon. The Geisel Award is given annually by the American Library Association to the author(s) and illustrator(s) of the most distinguished American book for beginning readers published in English in the United States during the preceding year. Of course, the reviews for Stinky are top notch for both the story and art work. The toon books are on the online reader and the website has lesson plans. Students can be read to or they can read it themselves. The books can be purchased as hardbound or paperback, but not library bound. Jack in the Box had mixed reviews, so use the online reader to take a look before you buy.

Ninja Baseball

Manga for those from 7 to 12 is the goal of Udon Kids publishing. They started publishing in 2009. Basically they have four genres: Adventure, Sports (Baseball), Fantasy, and Science Fiction. Three of the series seem to be directly aimed at girls. They have a preview of each of the series on their website. The stories are in black and white and must be read from back to front as traditional Manga. These are translated from Japanese titles, so they have 200 pages. Characters have the traditional big eyes and typical manga energy. These are all in paperback which makes them a challenge for use in libraries, but not impossible.

The Big Cheese: Geronimo Stilton

Papercutz, an imprint of Macmillan Publishing for tweens 8-14, launched in the Spring of 2005 with the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew graphic novels is now coming out with graphic novels of Geronimo Stilton. These can be hardbound, but they are not library bound as of yet. There are three of these available: #1, the Discovery of America; #2 the Secret of the Sphinx, and #3 the Coliseum Con. If you are not sure you are interested, checkout this preview of the Secret of the Sphinx. By the way Spotlight is still publishing some of the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew in library editions, but they do not have all produced by Papercutz.

The original Geronimo Stilton books are chapter books. Attack of the Bandit Cats has a Lexile score of 570L. You can search for the score for each book. They were originally published in Italy and have been translated into 35 languages. In 2004 they finally became available in the United States. Each book is a fast, good read and is an excellent crossover adventure book for students ready to jump from graphic novels to chapter books. Many pages have a comic on it making the book feel familiar to those not yet used to reading chapter books. Geronimo Stilton is the main character who is the editor of a newspaper and time traveler who has to keep his arch enemy (a cat of course) from changing history. Bound to Stay bound has 35 volumes of Geronimo Stilton books available. It's best to get these in library bound (BSTB) as these books will be taking a lot of wear and tear. Read some chapters aloud and the books will fly off the shelves. There are many cheese jokes in these so a cheese tasting would be a great introduction.

In Italy the classic tales such as Robin Hood are included in the collection. However, they have not yet been translated into English as of this date.

Bulking Up Little Mickey

Walt Disney bought Marvel Comics for $4 billion. It means more big bucks for Disney as they produce megahit movies with these characters. What does this mean for Marvel's stable of comic characters, Ironman, Captain America, Spiderman, Wolverine, and Spiderwoman? What does this mean for publishers like ABDO Publishing who publish the comics in Spotlight one of their imprints? These are hardbound with library binding. What does this mean to inner city libraries and the young people who cannot afford to buy comics, so they use the local library as their source?

Will Spidey be bringing the glass slipper to Cinderella? Will Mickey Mouse have to bulk up his petite frame, so he can marry one of the wicked stepsisters? Will Captain America knock off the wicked witch of Sleeping Beauty? Of course, Captain America doesn't have a weapon except his shield, so he will have to use a judo toss as a method of disposal.

It doesn't have to be negative. It can be a win-win for both companies and for libraries. Time Warner has owned DC (Detective Comics) since 1969. If anything, the movies produced have added to the mystic of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman. Comics are more popular than ever. If you don't believe it, just checkout the growing graphic novel sections in your local bookstore. Five years ago these sections were slim pickings. In 2003 most city libraries did not even have a graphic novel section. Now they do. A student looks forward to a movie coming out. They go to see it, and they want more. This merger will mean an upswing in books kids want to read. That is the core value. There need to be books kids want to read to propel them to proficiency in reading. Hopefully, more books will be produced and many of those books will be in library binding.