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As a French-Canadian, I grew up reading a brand of comics slightly different from the popular choices in the United States. I loved Boule & Bill, Asterix, Lucky Luke, Tintin, Gaston Lagaffe, and Kid Paddle, just to name a few. Now I'm raising my own daughter in California, and while I grew up on comic books, I feel totally clueless in the world of kids comics available in the US.
A Parent's Guide to the Best Kids' Comics: Choosing Titles You Children Will Love is a new guide book designed to make the job easier for parents. Written by two librarians, Scott Robbins and Snow Wildsmith, it contains 100 of the best kids comics available on the market today.
I wasn't expecting very much beyond a simple list, but I was thoroughly amazed at the design and flow of the book. As far as guides go, this is perfection. Other guide makers everywhere should use this guide as an example! You might think I'm exaggerating or being sarcastic, but I really am in love with this book. Each of the 100 comics is allocated exactly the same level of importance and amount of space. Each comic gets two pages, the first with details about the publication and the second is a full-page full-color sample page of the comic. The details page contains the following for each comic:
- Grade level: Pre-K-1, 2-3, 4-5, or 6-8.
- Genre: Adventure, early learning, fantasy, historical fiction, horror & paranormal, humor, memoir, mystery, non-fiction, romance, school & family, science fiction, sports & games, super-hero, and wordless.
- Summary and review.
- Cover image of the comic.
- In this series: If the comic is part of a series, it will list all other titles here.
- Awards.
- Educational tie-ins: This will list any topic explored in the book. For example, educational tie-ins could be sibling relationships, adopted families, friendship, teamwork, etc. This section will also include links of associated resources, like teaching guides, if any.
- Heads up: Any warning the parent might need about questionable content that may not be appropriate for every child, for example name calling, potty humor, cartoon violence.
- What's next: Suggestions for more titles with the same style or topic.
Finally, the books are ordered by age group.
My local library doesn't have a huge selection of kids comics, but I was happy to see that I could find quite a few of the titles recommended in this book. With my daughter who's only recently turned two, I tried Benny and Penny, Elephant & Piggie, and Little Mouse Gets Ready. All of them were just lovely, Elephant & Piggie being her favorite so far. I'm very happy that I will have this book to guide me through years of comic reading with my daughter.
Please note: I was provided a copy of this book for review purposes.
