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.