Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Basal Readers...er ...Comics

This new series called Toon Comics, described in this Publishers Weekly article, sounds very interesting. Françoise Mouly (New Yorker art director and wife of cartoonist Art Spiegelman) is behind the effort.

“Comics are the gateway to literacy for young kids,” said Mouly who expects Toon Books to transform books for early readers the same way RAW influenced indie comics. “RAW showed that comics can be taken seriously,” she said. Little Lit, a comics line for older kids launched by Mouly and Spiegelman in 2000, “was an intermediate step using the RAW model. Now there are more comics for kids 10–12 years old but not for very young kids.”

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

As a children's librarian and former comic book collector, I have to say I'm pleased. Thanks for bringing this to my attention

Camille said...

Scope notes,
The Wretched Stones was one of the BEST read alouds I have ever, ever enjoyed with kids. Thanks for reminding me of it!

Susan T. said...

Camille, there's also a series called Phonics Comics, which is published by Innovative Kids. They're really popular at my son's school library, even among the older children.

Camille said...

Susan,
I will look for those. Kids love comics. You must have a good school library.