Comics: Not Just for Grown-ups Anymore
Françoise Mouly, art director for the New Yorker, and her husband Art Spiegelman have parlayed their love of comics into a mission to help kids learn how to read. Following the success of the RAW anthologies for grown-ups, then the Little Lit comics for young adults, Mouly and Spiegelman have launched Toon Books, a line of full-color, original comics for children ages 4+, i.e., kids who are just learning to read.
Mouly, who says her family learned their love of reading from comics, got grade-school cred for the books by getting feedback from librarians, teachers, and kids in Brooklyn, the South Bronx, and Pennsylvania. She also met with the Maryland State Superintendent of Schools, who is planning to use the books in K-3 classrooms as part of the Maryland Comic Book Initiative.
In a recent Publishers Weekly article, Mouly talked about her ambitions for Toon Books:
“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... “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.”
Toon Books will release three titles in spring 2008: Benny and Penny by Geoffrey Hayes (April), Silly Lilly and the Four Seasons by Agnes Rosenstiehl (May), and Otto's Orange Day by Frank Cammuso and Jay Lynch (June). And, exciting news for Spiegelman fans whose little ones aren't quite ready for Maus--in the fall he will release his own Toon Book, Jack and the Box. --Heidi
ManBearPig on November 24, 2007 at 09:14 AM
Love Comics