Robot6 February 26, 2010
Where The Best Books Are! January 26, 2010
Aaron's Comic Books Blog, About.com January 25, 2010
Forbitten Planet January 23, 2010
ICv2 January 19, 2010
PW - The Beat January 18, 2010
Library Binding December 26th, 2009
Hook Kids on Reading December 3, 2009
Comic Book Resources November 24, 2009
Book 4 Your Kids November 23, 2009
Forbidden Planet November 22, 2009
Ephemerist November 22, 2009
Great Kid Books November 21, 2009
Best-Selling Books November 17, 2009
NPR October 20, 2009
Booklist October 1, 2009
Publisher's Weekly September 21, 2009
Orlando Sentinel September 21, 2009
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette April 14, 2009
Jean Little Library February 17, 2009
5 Minutes for Books January 8, 2009
Publisher's Weekly December 22, 2008
Scholastic Parent and Child Magazine December 22, 2008
Clark Kent's Lunchbox December 17, 2008
Postcards from the Mothership December 14, 2008
Suburban Turmoil Reviews November 24, 2008
Back to Books November 23, 2008
Newsarama November 12, 2008
Comicsgirl November 12, 2008
Diamond Bookshelf August 25, 2008
Teachers and Writers Magazine Summer 2008
Sequart Research and Literary Organization May 29, 2008
Omnivoracious May 16, 2008
Booklist Magazine May 2008
Time for Kids April 25, 2008
Bookreporter April 11, 2008
Bookreporter Interview April 11, 2008
Newsarama April 8, 2008
Horn Book April 2008
PRINT Magazine Spring 2008
Miami Herald March 22, 2008

...MORE PRAISE FOR TOON BOOKS

Robot 6
February 26, 2010

Benny and Penny in The Toy Breaker
by Geoffrey Hayes
Toon Books, 32 pages, $12.95

This is my favorite of the Benny and Penny books so far. It isn't that I've disliked the previous two books in the brother/sister series as much as this new entry, about an unruly cousin that comes over to play, seems a bit more lively and playful, both in the layouts and in the art itself, which has a frenetic and loose -- but never sloppy -- quality. It's a pretty energetic and fast-paced book, even by young reader standards. You sense Hayes had a lot of fun putting this together and his good humor is infectious. Obviously it's not going to challenge anyone over the age of seven, but I'd easily recommend it for it's intended audience.

Zig and Wikki in Something Ate My Homework
by Nadja Spiegelman and Trade Loeffler
Toon Books, 40 pages, $12.95.

If nothing else, this book introduced me to Loeffler's work and I'm grateful for that. He's got a clean, simple style I really like, with thick black outlines for his characters and a minimum of detail to keep the panels from becoming overly busy. His work is ideal for the children's market.

This was Toon Books first entry into nonfiction, and it's a toe-dipping affair, with the two title alien characters landing on Earth and attempting to capture an animal for their science project, learning a few interesting facts along the way. Spiegelman does a good job with the interplay between the Zig and Wikki, and the story moves along nicely enough, but the facts themselves seem to be presented in a rather haphazard fashion. As happy as I was to learn about the food chain, or that a frog eats its shedded skin, or that raccoons have five fingers on their hands, I think I would have preferred something a little more focused. Maybe there's more present than I'm seeing and that the book's goals of teaching simple animal facts are consistent with the curriculum goals of that particular grade level, but I think next time I'd like a narrower topic and a good deal more detail.

—Chris Mautner; Robot 6

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Where The Best Books Are!
January 26, 2010

Q: I want my 6-year-old to get excited about reading but I'm having a hard time wading through all of the readers, knowing which ones are better than others. Are there some series you'd recommend more highly than others?

A: My three boys have been a great testing ground for early readers, and I can tell you from experience that the books that engaged them the most were funny in a way they could appreciate. Mo Willems' Elephant and Piggie Books (Hyperion Books for Children) are brilliant. My youngest laughs out loud as he reads them and gets a charge out of saying sound words like "Oof!" that help break up the new words he's learning. We're also big fans of the Toon Books, including the Theodor Seuss Geisel Honor-winning Stinky. Published in a cartoon format, the books are funny, easy-to-read and wonderfully quirky. Other stellar books include Kate DiCamillo's Mercy Watson Books (Candlewick Press) and the hilarious new Max Spaniel series by David Catrow (Orchard Books).

—Jenny Miller; Where The Best Books Are!

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Aaron's Comic Books Blog, About.com
January 25, 2010

This past year, a comic book has swept the Theodore Geisel Awards. For those of you who don't know who Theodore Geisel is, you may know him by his other name, Dr. Seuss. From the Geisel Award website - "The Geisel Award is given annually 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." The winner for 2010 is Benny and Penny and the Big No No!, written by Geoffrey Hayes and published by TOON Books.

One of the groups that is really embracing comic books is the librarian. Graphic novels are really becoming more and more in the spotlight and I know that the focus of most recent librarian conference was solely on comic books and graphic novels. This kind of thing has really elevated comics into the public mindset and we are now seeing more comics for young and early readers, such as the winner above. It's is awesome to see a comic book receive such a prestigious award and I look forward to checking it out.

—Aaron Albert; Aaron's Comic Books Blog, About.com

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Forbidden Planet International
January 23, 2010

It’s been a week of congratulations for some great publishers and creators. First Kate Brown, whose Spider Moon graphic novel will be coming soon from David Fickling books, wins the Arts Foundation graphic novel prize (Joe covered the story here)

And now news comes of Toon Books sweeping the American Library Association’s awards. Although it only published three books in 2009, two of them won major awards; the ALA’s Theodor Seuss Geisel Award for most distinguished beginning reader was awarded to Benny and Penny in the Big No-No! (review). The second award went to Jeff Smith’s Little Mouse Gets Ready (review), which became one of four Honour books for the Geisel.

Geoffrey Hayes, writer and artist on Benny and Penny said: “Winning the Geisel is especially meaningful to me as I spent much of my career focusing on easy readers and trying to promote children’s literacy. To receive an award named after one of the giants of children’s books is a tremendous honor.”

Congratulations to all at Toon Books, it’s pleasing to see them getting the acolades they most definitely deserve for their work in broadening the age range of graphic novels. Their next releases in April will be Geoffrey Hayes’ latest Benny and Penny book, Toy Breaker and Zig and Wikki in Something Ate My Homework, the first non-fiction science based Toon Book release.

—Richard; ForbiddenPlanet.co.uk

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ICv2
January 19, 2010

The American Library Association's awards, announced at the organization's Midwinter Meeting in Boston Monday, included two major kudos for graphic novel publisher Toon Books and an award for Stitches. Benny and Penny in the Big No-No! by Geoffrey Hayes won the top award, and Little Mouse Gets Ready by Jeff Smith won honorable mention.

Toon's Benny and Penny in the Big No-No!, by Geoffrey Hayes, took the Theodor Seuss Geisel Award for most distinguished beginning reader book; Little Mouse Gets Ready, by Jeff Smith, is a Geisel Honor Book.

Two of Toon's three releases last year were honored by the award, an impressive track record. Last year, Toon's Stinky was a Geisel Honor book (see "'Stinky' Named Geisel Honor Book").

Toon's Benny and Penny in the Big No-No!, by Geoffrey Hayes, took the Theodor Seuss Geisel Award for most distinguished beginning reader book; Little Mouse Gets Ready, by Jeff Smith, is a Geisel Honor Book.

Toon editorial director Francoise Mouly expressed satisfaction at the ratification of the concept of comic material for emerging readers. When Mouly and Art Spiegelman started Toon in 2008, "nobody had ever published comics for kids that young before," Mouly said. "The Geisels and all the other awards the Toon books have gotten are deeply gratifying."

—ICv2; ICv2

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PW - The Beat
January 18, 2010

The American Library Association Youth Media Awards were handed out this morning....For the second year in a row, books from Toon Books, the comics line for early readers spearheaded by Francoise Mouly, were honored by the Theodor Seuss Geisel Award for beginning reader books. Benny and Penny in the Big No-No! by Geoffrey Hayes won the top award, and Little Mouse Gets Ready by Jeff Smith won honorable mention.

The kinds of library awards are extremely significant in the continuing legitimization and success of graphic novels in libraries–librarians typically look to these kinds of awards for hints on what to order for their collections, and should give all the books mentioned added shelf life.

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Library Binding
December 26, 2009

Some things should just sell themselves.
TOON Books is easily one of the most interesting lines of children’s literature being published right now. The concept is simple–these are easy readers, written with a limited vocabulary, in a comic book format, complete with panels and word balloons, created by some of the masters of comics, like Art Spiegelman (Pulitizer Prize-winning creator of MAUS) and Jeff Smith (creator of Bone).

While I’m one of the comics-are-art crowd, the way the best comics combine art with the written word to capture the readers interest has special magic to children-even children who otherwise shy away from books. And while I think it would be great to include some kid-appropriate superhero fare in the classroom library–that’s not what TOON Books is about. These are stories about talking animals, animated toys, kids going to school–a wide range of classroom-appropriate topics. The creators are great artists, renowned in their field, creating books with the express purpose of getting kids into reading. The stories are simple and charming, the illustrations are beautiful, and did I mention that each book has an accompanying, age-appropriate lesson plan available at the TOON Books website?

Even if you’re not a comic fan, you owe it to yourself to check this one out.

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Hook Kids on Reading: Great Christmas Books for Boys
December 3, 2009

Just starting to read? Luke on the Loose is a fantastic graphic novel with a controlled vocabulary. Luke's a kid that can't stop chasing pigeons, so he chases them all over New York City. This is published by TOON Books, Art Spiegelman and his wife Francoise Mouly, and they have a really good line-up of graphic novel readers.
—Margot Finke; HookKidsOnReading.blogspot.com

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Comic Book Resources
November 24, 2009

Speaking of kids comics, Toon Books has a few news items worth noting. First of all, the company has upgraded their Web site, adding a number of interactive features, including Toon Readers, which features creators like Jeff Smith reading their books aloud as you virtually flip through the pages; and Cartoon Maker, which lets you build your own comic using the Benny and Penny characters.

Next, the company has announced their two new titles for Spring 2010. They are: Zig and Wikki in Something Ate My Homework by Nadja Spiegelman and Trade Loeffler, the first book in their line to incorporate science facts into a story; and Benny and Penny in The Toy Breaker by Geoffrey Hayes, the third book in the B&P line.

They've also got stuff for teachers, including lesson plans and a guide on how to have a class re-enact some of the books, as the video below demonstrates.
—Chris Mautner; ComicBookResources.com

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Books4YourKids.com
November 23, 2009

I realize that I am often going on about the lack of high quality, beginning to read books that have appealing content both visually and texturally, and believe me, every title published by TOON Books meets all my criteria for a great beginning reader book, but really, above all else, these are just spectacular picture books that happen to be ideal for emerging readers. I have read every book in the series out loud to pre-readers during story time at the book store and to my own pre-reader and kids love them. But, because Francoise Mouly, editorial director at TOON at art editor for The New Yorker magazine, and her husband, Art Speigelman, series advisor at TOON as well as author of the Pulitzer Prize Letters award winning autobiographical graphic novel, Maus: A Survivor's Tale, specifically set out to create a line of books that would be appealing in all ways as well as appropriate for emerging readers, I will discuss them in this context first and foremost.

As Mouly recounted in an interview, the lack of visual clues and interesting stories in most beginning reader books shocked her when her now teenage son was learning to read. Mouly, who says that those early readers "nearly killed his love of reading," felt that this dearth was a blow to "what had been, until then, a bonding moment" between parent and child. As a native of France, which, like Japan has a rich tradition of appreciation for comic books, Mouly decided to teach her son to read using her large collection of French comics. Through this experience, Mouly learned that comics are perfectly suited to the beginning reader genre. As Mouly notes, with a typical beginning reader book, the words are written first and all of the story and clues to meaning are in the text, the pictures serving mostly to "gild the lily." With a comic book, "the narrative flow is sketched out first, then the text is filled in. If you don't understand the words, then you still get the gist because the sense is in the pictures." In addition to this, Mouly worked with teachers and reading experts to ensure that the vocabulary in the books is appropriate for beginning readers at various stages.

There are currently nine books in the series. Silly Lilly, Benny & Penny in Just Pretend, Luke on the Loose, Stinky and Otto's Orange Day are in paperback, while Jack and the Box, Little Mouse Gets Ready, Benny & Penny in the Big No-No and Mo & Jo: Fighting Together Forever are still only available in hardcover. Having read and loved them all, I have to confess that I do have favorites. Geoffrey Hayes' two Benny & Penny books remind me a lot of books from my childhood and a little bit of Beatrix Potter and Garth Williams artistic style. His books are colorful, magical and gentle and, even though they fight, Benny and Penny find their way to being friends and siblings by the end of the story. Little Mouse Gets Ready by Jeff Smith is another favorite of mine. Like Geoffrey Hayes, his artwork is sweet and gentle and his story is engrossing and ultimately laugh out loud funny. Jeff Smith is also the author of the very, very popular (mostly among pre-teen boys, especially those who love the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series) graphic novel series >Bone. However, if I had to pick only one TOON Book to take to a desert island, it would be first time author/illustrator Eleanor Davis's Stinky, winner of the American Library Association's honor award for the most distinguished book for beginning readers, the (Theodore Seuss) Geisel Award. A seemingly simple story about a prickly little monster who wants to keep a curious fort-building boy out of his swamp, Stinky is completely charming and visually stunning.

And, coming in the Spring of 2010, the first science based, early reader comic!

For those of you who are interested in determining reading levels beyond those provided by the TOON Books, bn.com is currently listing the Lexile reading level of certain books as well as a way to determine your child's Lexile score. For more about this, see my post on READING LEVELS. For those of you who are interested, the Lexile number and corresponding reading level for TOON Books, when available, is listed below.

Silly Lilly - RL .8
Benny & Penny 90L - RL 1.1
Benny & Penny the Big No - No - RL 1.3
Little Mouse 160L - RL 1.3
Jack and the Box 100L - RL 1.1
Luke on the Loose
Stinky 170L - RL 1.5
Otto's Orange Day - RL 2.1
Mo and Jo Fighting Together Forever 240L - RL 1.8
—Tanya; Books4YourKids.com

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Forbidden Planet International
November 22, 2009

Over on the Toon Books website, they’ve a couple of very nice tools for early readers; Toon Creator and Toon Reader. Two lovely little applications, one allows children to listen to the authors reading the books aloud while they click on the balloons and turn the pages whilst the other allows the readers to make cartoons featuring the characters from Benny & Penny.

Both applications look very good and, in my other life working in primary schools I’ll be adding these to my school website and trying them out with some of our younger children. I imagine they’re going to love them
—Richard; ForbiddenPlanet.co.uk

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The Ephemerist
November 22, 2009

Toon Books is presenting a couple of their books as online read-along books, with dialogue read aloud in as many as five languages. That’s not only a good promotional tool for the delightful early reader books that they bring out, it’s also a unique opportunity to hear Jeff Smith play the part of Little Mouse, and hear Art Spiegelman yell, “Gaaa !“…
—Richard; Sparehed.com

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Great Kid Books
November 21, 2009

Kids love comic books. Whenever we get a new comic book in the library, there's a mad rush to check it out. Comic books are stimulating and engaging; they are complex and yet very easy to dive into. But reading comic books takes certain skills. We read comics in a different way than we read other picture books or stories. If you have an early reader, take a look at these two comic books and the websites that go along with them. Toon Books is a new publishing division of Raw Books that focuses specifically on comic books for early readers.

Check out Toon Book Reader, a fantastic online site that helps bring comics alive for young kids, while teaching them important reading skills. Kids can read a book online, clicking on text bubbles to have the story read aloud to them. My kindergartner loves the interactive nature of this site, and it's fascinating watching her learn how to read the comic book. You need to read the text bubbles in order, from top to bottom, within a panel. And you need to read the panels in order. You need to think about the action that the pictures show, and figure out where the action or setting changes between panels. This site is a great resource for kids practicing early reading skills at home: it's fun, engaging and free! Toon Books has developed this site in conjunction with the Professor Garfield Foundation, a leader in online educational literacy programs.

Little Mouse Gets Ready is for early readers in kindergarten and 1st grade. It's a sweet and funny story about a little mouse who must get dressed before he can go to the barn. Each step takes careful work, from putting his underwear on and checking the tag is in the back, to buttoning a shirt. The gentle humor will remind little kids of all that they have to do. As you can see from this picture of a page, the text is very simple and easy to follow.

"I'm going to the barn with your brothers and sisters. Are you ready to go?" says Little Mouse's mother. "Almost, Mama." If you'd like to read the book online, click the image above. As Booklist says, "Smith's deceptively simple style is a terrific match for a young audience—one- or two-panel pages that are elegant, lighthearted, and touching all at once—and a knock-your-socks-off twist at the end will leave children giggling."

Benny and Penny are two squabbling siblings playing together in their backyard. When they discover that a neighbor has moved in next door, they become convinced that this new neighbor must have stolen Benny's missing pail. Curiosity leads them into a big no-no: climbing the fence to see for themselves. They end up meeting their neighbor and discovering the peril in making assumptions. This book is more complex than Little Mouse, with multiple panels per page. The story is inventive and the characters thoughts and dynamic expressions make it come to life. My daughter immediately asked for this be read again, and then again the next night.

As Francoise Mouly, the founder and editorial director of Toon Books, said, "Comic invite repeated readings, because there's more to find in the images. In the first reading you get the story, but in the second reading you get all the little supporting players, all the way that the theme is conveyed... I think comics are a medium where kids can get readily involved - there's something in it for them that is decipherable." (Scholastic Parent and Child)
—Mary Ann Scheuer; GreatKidsBooks.blogspot.com

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Best-Selling Books
November 17, 2009

I took a chance on this book because I enjoyed the better children’s comic book stories from the 1940s and 1950s that I had seen over the years.I also trusted the editor Art Spiegelman to edit a quality book.

I’m glad I bought this book – because it is a wonderful, high quality book with excellent story and art content.At about 11 1/2 inches by 9 1/2 inches and over 350 pages, it’s a great value at the $40 suggested retail price.At Amazon’s discounted price, it’s a super bargain!

The stories are mainly 1940s through the 1950s, with one story as early as 1939 and another as late as 1965.I like the five different chapters containing the different type of children’s stories – stories about kids, funny animals, fantasy, storytime, and weird & wacky.

There were several stories that I recognized that are among my favorites – such as a Fox and the Crow story titled “The Great Chiseler” from 1951, Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge stories, and the comic book story of the UPA cartoon “Gerald McBoing Boing”, which translates well to paper.

I also enjoyed discovering many stories I had never read before – which was fun for me because I had read many such stories over the years.

The large pages and full color will make this book a treat for any child – no matter what age you are.I am 60 years old but I would have loved this book back in my early childhood and all the years in between.
—Best-SellingBooks.com

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NPR: 'Toon' Anthology Offers A Treasury Of Classic Comics
October 20, 2009

Heartfelt thanks to Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly for bringing back a nearly forgotten popular art form with their groundbreaking new collection The TOON Treasury of Classic Children's Comics. The superhero mode has so dominated — you almost want to say "deformed" — comic books for so long that few folks younger than 50 can remember the wonderfully diverse subject matter of the comic's early days.

As Spiegelman and Mouly point out, the 1940s and early 1950s were the boom years for comics, with hundreds of titles and millions in sales. That's a lot of dimes. However, cartoons on TV, rising prices and the sense that only superheroes were cool in the 1960s led kid comics into a permanent decline.

The TOON Treasury of Classic Children's Comics offers a potent argument that this was a loss for family entertainment. Spiegelman and Mouly do this by selecting only humorous stories — true funny books — and by avoiding any dated stereotypes. That means, unfortunately, that there are no black characters in this book.

Paging through mountainous piles of comics, the editors selected more material by four artist-writers than any others, all but one of them unknown to the general public.

Walt Kelly is still kind of famous because of his Pogo newspaper comic. Carl Barks, the creator of Uncle Scrooge and the finest of the Walt Disney comic artists, is a giant in Europe but a cult figure here. You have to be a comic-book fan to know that Little Lulu was written by John Stanley, or even that Little Lulu was a marvelous comic. And finally, only the hard-core now remember Sheldon Mayer, who did Sugar and Spike and many other titles. Mayer made his mark when he insisted that his bosses include a much-rejected work in the first issue of Action Comics. You may have heard of it — something called Superman.

Mayer was a master of gentle humor with a slapstick twist. It didn't matter whether it was Sugar and Spike, his wised-up babies who were all for each other in a world of adults they couldn't understand, or the goofy blowhard J. Rufus Lion. Kelly does a dollop of Pogo, but his equally droll treatment of fairy tale conventions is a revelation. Stanley made Little Lulu one of the most confident female characters in comics, stuck with grown-up fools and stuck-up boys in an absurd world. And Barks is one of the most deft and inventive American humorists and storytellers in any field. The man makes you crazy. Still, an old lesson holds true: The more overtly didactic a story, the less funny, which damages characters like intellectual Amos. However, the overall lack of ironic humor is refreshing, and it's interesting how many comics expected an audience that was thoroughly familiar with classic fairy tales and at least a bit familiar with life on a farm. Spiegelman and Mouly were also correct that wit outlasts thrills, in comics at least.

There were a couple of vintage superheros with a sense of humor: Jack Cole's Plastic Man and C. C. Beck's Captain Marvel, and both artist-writers are represented in the TOON Treasury.

The truth is, most of the comic-book Westerns and crime tales and superhero sagas of the 1940s and 1950s don't hold up well today. The nostalgic glow soon fades into tedium. But Sugar and Spike, Little Lulu and Tubby, and Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge remain as vibrant and timeless as the fairies and knights and genies that so much inspired them.
—Milo Miles; NPR.org

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Booklist: The Past, and Future, of Comics
October 1, 2009

When it comes to kids’ comics, there is no bigger presence than the husband-and-wife team of Françoise Mouly and Art Spiegelman. Since launching in 2008, their early-reader TOON Books imprint has redefined how comics are used as a literacy tool to teach kids how to not only read but also love to read.

It’s fair to assume that by now most people will admit that comics are viable (which is to say, grown-up) literature. “But it’s one of those be-careful-what-you-wish-for moments,” says Spiegelman. “After years of saying comics are not just for kids, we sort of have to say, ‘But wait, they’re also for kids!’” The TOON Treasury of Classic Children’s Comics is a resounding reminder of just that.

As with TOON Books, the idea for this compilation came from “a missionary zeal of wanting comics for kids to be considered really important,” says Mouly. Yet, while this collection does carry the TOON moniker, it’s really for those kids who have graduated from picture books but aren’t yet hopping into Potter. “You don’t have much literature for that kid between the time he’s read to and the time he’s a 10-year-old avid reader. The Treasury fills those really important gap years,” Mouly says.

At the same time, Mouly and Spiegelman see these comics as ideal for reading aloud with younger children. “Nowadays, learning to read, unfortunately, means moving away from pictures,” Mouly says. “That mind-set is counterintuitive.”

“The thing that I really resent is this notion that pictures are somehow training wheels,” says Spiegelman. “The comics thing works because enough of the story is told in pictures, and once they’ve heard it, kids can reconstruct what is happening in the balloons before they even know what an alphabet is.”

So how better to introduce kids to the delights of comics than with the early masters of the form? “The minute we started talking about it, we looked at each other and said, ‘We have to do this,’” says Mouly.

The process was long, fraught with arguments and rights negotiations, and a complete joy. “This couldn’t have been done as thoroughly five years ago,” says Mouly. The enormous caverns of information unlocked by electronic media made it possible for the couple to range far beyond what they already knew of classic comics or could dig up in hard copy. They also set up an online discussion group of comics scholars who could articulate what made a certain story so special. “Those were surreal conversations,” laughs Mouly. “We’re thinking of trying to find some way to post our very high-falutin’ conversation about the virtues of this story versus that story online.”

After sifting through thousands of comic books, they came up with a list that in a perfect world would constitute their book. “Surprisingly,” says Spiegelman, “we got every single thing we wanted.”

“We’re definitely of the mind-set that having more readers, especially young ones, is the only way that there will be a future for comics,” says Mouly. Spiegelman, right on her heels, adds, “I’m actually more concerned about the future of the future, and I really believe that literacy is urgent. It’s just ironic that the same comic books that were being burned in the 1950s for leading to juvenile delinquency are now becoming the gateway to thinking citizenry.”
—Ian Chipman; BooklistOnline.com

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Publisher's Weekly
September 21, 2009

Just as children of an earlier generation read and reread books like Louis May Alcott's Little Women, said Art Spiegelman, children of the mid-20th century read and re-read Little Lulu, Donald Duck, and other children's comics.

With The Toon Treasury of Classic Children’s Comics, published earlier this month by Abrams, Spiegelman and his wife, Francoise Mouly, are bringing those classics to kids of a new generation.

"Comic books were considered the most disposable ephemera, yet clearly those who grew up with them cherished them," Spiegelman said. "It seems like some of the most important literature for children in the middle of the 20th century is in these comic books."

Spiegelman and Mouly put together an advisory board, including Bone creator Jeff Smith, Nickelodeon Magazine editor Chris Duffy, and comics writer Jeet Heer, to help them select the comics, with most of the discussion occurring over the internet. "I felt very secure knowing that I was among people who really know their stuff," Spiegelman said. “Take Donald Duck—there are people, including me, who have read it all but have different opinions—if you can only save one story from the fire, what would it be? That led to a feeling of security that this is not the only 350 pages, but it is an essential 350 pages."

With that in mind, they want the book to feel special—like the bonus issues of comics that cost 25 cents instead of 10—but also to have an authoritative feel, like an essential reference book. "We wanted it to be like the Betty Crocker Cookbook, one of the basic features of your home," Spiegelman said.

And many of those works had been in the mix from the beginning, Mouly said. They were the books the board members remembered from their own childhoods. "We discovered a few new things, but a lot of the oscillation had to do with the periphery, whether we would put in Harvey comics or not," she said. (They didn’t.) "The core, after gathering a consensus with other people, validated what had been our gut feeling, and that was pretty much the comics that were formative for the cartoonists. That was one of the criteria: don't look it up, don’t overthink it. Which character, which story do you remember?"

Spiegelman is the creator of the graphic novel Maus, and Mouly is the art editor for and editorial director of Toon Books, a line of comics for beginning readers. Their previous anthologies include the famed alternative comics anthology Raw Magazine and the Little Lit series of children’s comics anthologies.

"Each issue of Raw had to have what I have since learned is a 'good flip,' where you feel good when flipping the pages but also rhymes and themes that recur so the whole should be greater than the parts that make up the sum," said Spiegelman. "That’s the task of a well edited anthology."

For the Toon Treasury, the editors also focused on children as their core readership. "Our ideal audience is a kid walking into a library or opening a Christmas present and having this wealth of materials he can dive into, the way Uncle Scrooge dives into his money," Mouly said.

Thus, while the work of Barks, Kelly, Stanley, and Sheldon Mayer form the four corners of the book, Spiegelman and Mouly chose to organize it by theme rather than by creator. "Kids remember Little Lulu, but they may not know or care who John Stanley is," Mouly said. For that reason also, they eliminated comics with potentially offensive content and those that were too outré. "With comics in general, the desire is to go for the strangest and most rule-breaking and boundary-shattering," Mouly said, “but that wasn't really the task here. It wasn't to put together a collection of strangely artistic pseudo-comics. We had to be very disciplined that way."

To get to that core, the editors read thousands of vintage comics, many in digital form. "Some were done by narcoleptic artists working at night, trying to get their pages in because there was an extra $20 bill in them," Spiegelman said. "A lot were very formulaic. A lot were what they would call twee, well intended but an automatic case of diabetes came with it. I can imagine an anthology I would never want to open, also called the Treasury of Classic Children’s Comics."

"At first I was really wondering how would we be able to tell a good from a bad comic," said Mouly, "but you do very quickly in terms of the resonance—even that simple principle of whether you remember it after having read it."

For Mouly, who grew up in France, some of the impetus for the anthology came from looking for comics for her own children and finding so few. "I found such a wealth of [American comics] in French, but so few here," she said.

Spiegelman wanted to share the classic comics he grew up with—Little Lulu, the Disney titles, Sugar and Spike—with his children, and he also realized the influence they had on his work. "For many years, I was more consciously aware of the influence of the horror, sci-fi, crime, and satire, like Mad, had on me," he said. “The other part was not exactly repressed, but it was sort of a given without me thinking about it. When I look back through Robert Crumb’s old work, the comics Uncle Scrooge and Donald Duck were basic to him as well. And the underground comics movement, we all read Little Lulu as well as the horror comics. Those were the best written.”

Superheroes, on the other hand, had little effect. "The core of this book's kid comics are so well composed that they have a complexity where you actually believe in the character," he said. “You have to suspend a lot of disbelief before you have Spider-Man climbing up a building but none to enter Little Lulu's universe." Mouly and Spiegelman’s work on the treasury coincided with their work on the Toon Books line. In both projects, Mouly said, the sense of the artist's individual vision was paramount. "I think it distinguishes the hacks, the ones that will take a formula and then replay the same tune over and over again, and the ones who will have a unique personality and vision and that comes through in the work," she said. In the earlier comics, publishers often had a house style, something that has been lost as publishers become small parts of large corporations. It’s something she is trying to recapture with Toon Books. "Jeff Smith and Art Spiegelman are different cartoonists, their work isn’t constructed in the same way, each has a unique approach to telling a story, but they each produce a great accomplishment in their own specific vision," she said. "What I really am proud of is having a range of great comics for young children that are each as good as the next and all different from one another. And meanwhile there is still a house style, [although] it’s hard to define in words."

"It's defining the sensibility by putting pins in various places on a map and defining the boundary," Spiegelman said.

The pair hope that the anthology, like the Toon books, will help children discover the pleasures of reading good literature that just happens to be in comics form.

"I think it is a very powerful experience for a kid to see the hand of the artist," Mouly said. "That’s part of the reason comics are such a jolt: They see somebody making a story. It’s not quite the same thing when you read a story in type, you don't have as direct a sense. Almost all [children] will want to make their own comic story, and they don't have that reaction when they play a video game or are reading a book set in type. That is a very creatively rich moment, to realize that somebody made this happen.”
—Brigid Alverson; Publisher'sWeekly.com

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Orlando Sentinel
September 21, 2009

Ten years ago, it would have been unthinkable. But here's Art Spiegelman on the phone from Manhattan, the man whose graphic novels have tackled 9-11 and the Holocaust, asserting that comic books are exactly what your mother always told you: kid stuff.

In a way, this is the most subversive stance yet for a creator whose works have come to define both comics' academic potential and their underground energy. His legacy stretches back to the late '60s infancy of the independent comics movement, but Spiegelman is best known for the Pulitzer-winning Maus, a warts-and-all memoir that recounts his father's trials as an Auschwitz survivor and subsequent life in New York City. Collected in two volumes in 1986 and '91, Maus was originally serialized in the pages of RAW, a magazine Spiegelman co-edited with his wife Françoise Mouly.

Comics as Art

Since then, the two have championed the notion of comics as art in their own ways, Spiegelman with challenging books such as In the Shadow of No Towers in 2004, Mouly in her role as art editor of The New Yorker. But a funny thing happened on the road to legitimacy: As one audience grew, they became keenly aware that comics' original readers — young children — had long since turned away.

"It's a battle that was lost when TV loomed as the primary mode of narrative for everybody, for kids and beyond," Spiegelman explains. "And comics got crippled in that 1950s 'juvenile delinquency is caused by comic books' moment. And ever since then, it's been a different relationship."

Spiegelman has expanded on that history in recent years with variations on his "Comix 101" lecture, one of which he is preparing to give at DeLand's Stetson University Wednesday. Peppered with his own experiences and reflections, Spiegelman's talks are a personal walk through the legacy of the medium.

"Comix 101 is this floating title," he says. "You keep traveling under your name. For me that's Art Spiegelman, but that person keeps changing on me. The lecture, similarly, is very different from one year to the next as it keeps morphing. I'm really probably up to 110.3 by now, but I haven't been updating properly."

Meanwhile, he and Mouly have been working to win back young readers in a more concrete way. Since 2000, they have been publishing a series of "Little Lit" anthologies that feature intelligent but kid-friendly stories by Spiegelman and fellow independent creators such as Dan Clowes and Chris Ware.

The effort is driven as much by his passion to create comics enjoyable at any age as his wife's efforts to highlight their educational possibilities.

"She's interested in how comics work on the brain, at least cognitive science, in that case," Spiegelman says. "And therefore, how comics really, really do help you learn to read better than even most picture books. She's now working with people out in Stanford and proving it, by God. ... She's making something really important this way, and it's a place comics never had fully gone. And that grew out of 'Let's do RAW for kids, if you want to work together and do something for kids that make sense.'"

Legacy Characters

Their latest collaboration is perhaps even more ambitious: The Toon Treasury of Classic Children's Comics. A mammoth volume collecting works from the late 1930s through the '60s, the treasury re-introduces a new generation to seminal characters such as Carl Barks' "Uncle Scrooge" and John Stanley's "Little Lulu" as well as lesser-known gems such as André LeBlanc's "Intellectual Amos."

While the volume is a literal treasure for comics historians, Spiegelman is adamant that these "funnybooks" be enjoyed as such.

"It's not about nostalgia," he says. "We didn't make this for the comics fan, although all are invited in as part of 'comics for all ages.' But it really is designed to be a treasury that tests the thesis that some of the greatest children's literature of the 20th century was done in comics panels. It just wasn't noticed because all comics were traveling under a cloud."

Spiegelman, who grew up with these same stories — and later reared two children on them — is living proof of his thesis. After years of pushing comics' envelope, he seems just as happy to help re-establish their foundations.

"When exposed to it, kids love comics," he says. "Big news flash, you know?"
—Todd Caviness; Orlando Sentinel

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Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Comics for New Readers
April 14th, 2009

When Francoise Mouly's son, Dash, was a first-grader and struggling to learn to read, his teacher suggested he practice at home with books for beginning readers.

Mouly, however, was aghast at the lack of interesting stories and visual clues in most beginning-reader books.

"Those early readers nearly killed his love of reading," Mouly said in a recent telephone interview. "It was really a blow to what had been, until then, a bonding moment."

So Mouly, who grew up in France, decided instead that her son would leanr to read with her large collection of French comics.

"I spent the next few months reading those with my son, which meant that reading time remained a pleasure."

Dash is now a teenager, but Mouly, art director of The New Yorker, never forgot that experience. And so, last year, she and her husband, Art Spiegelman (famous for his Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel, "Maus"), launched TOON Books, a line of hardcover comic books aimed at beginning readers.

TOON Books published six books last year; one of them, "Stinky", written and illustrated by Eleanor Davis, was named a Theodore Seuss Geisel Honor Book for beginning readers. Spiegelman also contributed one book, "Jack in the Box," to the first line of TOON Books.

The books, published in beautifully designed, brightly colored hardcover editions, cost $12.95 each. Two more books were published this year: "Luke on the Loose," by author/artist Harry Bliss, and "Benny and Penny in the Big No-No!," by author/artist Geoffrey Hayes. Mouly plans to expand the line into nonfiction.

Unlike typical beginning readers, where the text is most important, in the TOON books, the illustrations are the focus.

In a non-comic book, Mouly explained, "the text is written first. All of the story and clues to meaning are in the text. Pictures add to it, but they gild the lily." In comics, however, "the narrative flow is sketched out first, then the text is filled in. IF you don't understand the words, then you still get the gist because the sense is in the pictures."

Mouly has worked with teachers and reading experts to ensure that the books have a vocabulary that works for beginning readers at various stages. The books also are rated for various reading systems used in schools although that information isn't contained in the books but on the TOON Books' Web site (www.toon-books.com).

"The books are very specifically graded for kids learning to read," Mouly said. "But we didn't want to put the level information in the books because we didn't want to discourage kids."

Unlike many new publishers, TOON Books received attention from the start, partly helped by Mouly's New Yorker position and Spiegelman's "Maus" fame. But there were other factors that boosted TOON Books' initial profile, such as the general lack of satisfying beginning-reader books and the growing market for graphic novels aimed at kids.

The most recent sales figures, compiled by ICv2, an industry trade group, show a 134 percent growth rate in graphic novels for kids from 2007-08. Graphic novels for kids accounted for only 3 percent of the $395 million 2008 graphic-novel market, but their share is expected to grow.

Yet confusion persists over just what to call these books for kids. Mouly prefers to call them "comics."

"I think it's confusing to call them 'kids' graphic novels'," she said. "They're great books, but not novels. They are comics and that is starting to be OK."

In fact, it was Mouly and Spiegelman who promoted the term "graphic novel" in trying to raise the literary profile of the form when "Maus" was published nearly 25 years ago. At the time, "comics" were regarded as something for kids.

"Art and I have always been advocating that comics are not just for kids. It led us into a land where comics are now accepted in museums and in libraries and bookstores. Then we turned around after all this accomplishment and said, 'Wait, but we didn't mean to say that comics aren't also OK for kids!"

Mouly and Spiegelman first stepped into the kids' comics arena in 2000, when they published a compendium of comics for young readers in a volume titled "Little Lit." Still, when Mouly tried to convince publishers to put out her beginning-reader comics, she found lots of interest but no takers because the books "crossed boundaries." So Mouly decided to publish them herself.

"There's an enormous industry of those very boring readers for kids," she said. "But we must give kids something that gives them a taste of how pleasurable reading is."
—Karen MacPherson; Post-Gazette.com

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Jean Little Library
February 17, 2009

Three more Toon books! Otto's Orange Day, while the pictures are appealingly comic, has a weak storyline. Otto, a little cat, loves the color orange. When he rubs an "orange" lamp (call me color-blind, but I'd say it's yellow) a blue genie pops out and grants him a wish - and he turns the world orange. In the end, we learn the unbelievably insipid lesson that it's good to have lots of different colors. Of course, I've always disliked the color orange, so maybe I'm prejudiced...

I was pleasantly surprised when I received Benny and Penny from the library I requested it from - Geoffrey Hayes wrote some of my favorite books as a child (note I said "favorite" not necessarily "best". What we love as a child has little relation to quality. But they were cute!). He sticks firmly to cuteness here with adorable fuzzy mice and a feel-good ending. I like it! The story, an older brother who doesn't want to be bothered with his baby sister, is relatable and well-crafted and the pictures are, well, adorable.

Silly Lilly is a much simpler story than either of the previous two. If I understand the Toon Books correctly, horizontally rectangular are the younger and vertical rectangles are the older easy readers. Anyhow, Silly Lilly shows us a favorite activity for each season. The colors are bold and the text simple and cheerful. A nice story, although nothing particularly surprising.

Young comic fans and children not ready to move on to the more text-heavy easy readers will probably like all of these comic easy readers.
—Jean Little Library

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5 Minutes for Books
January 8, 2009

I recently received three books by three different authors targeted at three different age groups from Toon Books. I’ve written before about why I love books with comic type formats. I think that they definitely open doors to a reluctant reader with a high picture to text ratio. Even my bookworm daughter turns to books that she has that are in the graphic novel format as fun easy books that she reads again and again. These from Toon Books are very clever, so I’m happy to recommend them.

And lest you think that they are simply fun and fluff, there are lesson plans for each of these titles available on their website.

Jack and the Box by Art Spiegelman is a “first comic for brand-new readers.” At 4 ½, Kyle is already beginning to read. I knew he had good sight-word recall, but in the last few weeks, he’s really surprised us! So, we’ve been using lots of easy readers. This one is typical of the genre – fairly large text font, a limited variety of words, and simple text. What’s even better about the comic format is with more pictures, it helps the young reader make predictions when they face an unfamiliar word about what the word might be. The colors are muted, and the pictures have a classic feel. We like this book a lot.

Mo and Jo: Fighting Together Forever by Dean Haspiel and Jay Lynch has bright colors and looks like a classic comic book, and even deals with a classic comic book theme: superheros. Mo and Jo are squabbly siblings who finally figure out how to get the most out of their superpowers (which they inherited when they came into possession of their favorite superhero’s costume). They learn that working together gives them the best return. This book is highly relevant to six to ten-year old children (and up if they like the genre): sibling rivalry, super powers, and finishes off with a positive lesson to boot.

Stinky by Eleanor Davis is a chapter book with a little younger feel (and the lesson plans are for 1st and 2nd grade, as opposed to 3th and 4th for Mo and Jo). This feels a little more like a traditional chapter book to me, still in the comic format with lots of pictures, but with more words. The illustrations here remind me of a classic “Family Circle” type of Sunday morning comic. Stinky lives in a swamp, and doesn’t like kids. Daisy (a tomboy) lives in a town and comes into the swamp to build a treehouse. Stinky plans to get rid of her, but plan after plan fails and they end up as friends. The themes of learning to share and dealing with stereotypes come through in the midst of a fun story.

Managing Editor Jennifer Donovan also blogs at Snapshot about life with her tween daughter and preschool son.

—Jennifer Donovan; 5 Minutes for Books

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Publisher's Weekly
December 22, 2008

There was once a time not so long ago when the only way comics made their way into classrooms was surreptitiously—hidden in backpacks or behind the textbooks of daydreaming students. But in many schools and universities around the nation, the attitudes of educators toward comics have been turned upside down.

Long ghettoized—even demonized—in North America as puerile and pulpy, both “comic books” (traditional comics periodicals) and book-format graphic novels are now being used in both k–12 and higher education classrooms as everything from early developmental reading tools to serious literary texts.

Partly, the shift is a recognition that the medium of comics has grown up, with graphic novels now claiming significant space on library shelves. Titles like Maus, Fun Home and American Born Chinese have won literary awards normally reserved for prose novels, and an increasing number of educators–cum–comics fans now work within their institutions as thoughtful advocates for the medium.

According to Milton Griepp, CEO of the pop culture news site ICv2.com, and Diamond Comics sales manager John Shableski, sales of graphic novels to libraries and schools increased from about $1 million in 2001 to more than $30 million in 2007, spurring many comics publishers to eye the unfamiliar multibillion-dollar educational publishing industry with increasing interest.

Librarian Advocacy Key

Educator and comics specialist Peter Gutierrez attributes much of the growing interest from schools to the support and advocacy of librarians, many of whom responded to growing mainstream interest in graphic novels by developing significant library collections. “In the last two years, there’s been an explosion of interest, spurred by the popularity and obvious quality of graphic novels in libraries. It’s created more fertile ground for the kind of lateral movement of sequential art narratives into the classroom itself,” says Gutierrez.

“The schools market is a sleeping giant, and it’s about to wake up,” Shableski says. “NCTE [National Council of Teachers of English] is the big conference, attended by 8,000 to 9,000 English teachers. Historically, they’ve had one or two programs out of 300 where they mention graphic novels or comics. Last year there were eight. This year at San Antonio, there [were] 11 dedicated graphic novel programs. That’s a big thing in the educational market.”

Most major comics companies are now dipping a toe into the schools market, and while some have made only cursory attempts to reach teachers, others, such as Dark Horse Comics, have worked directly with academics and education experts to develop materials. The publishing home of Hellboy and Sin City, Dark Horse also publishes materials for an educational comics initiative called the Comic Book Project, developed by Columbia University Teaching School professor Michael Bitz in 2001 to reinforce literacy by teaching kids to develop, script and draw their own comics.

“There are currently about 900 [Comic Book Project] programs across the country,” says Dark Horse marketing coordinator Aaron Colter, who adds that participation in the program has been increasing. “We’ve had about 115 schools adopt it this year alone, and 30 in the last three months.”

But for every publisher working side by side with educators or attending American Library Association conferences, others have made only perfunctory attempts to reach out. “It’s great that there’s some material for teaching graphic novels, but they aren’t really comparable to what a typical language arts teacher would expect from an educational publisher or trade publisher,” Gutierrez says. “In graphic novels, publishers don’t have the expertise or the money to invest in research or teaching guides. They’re waiting to see if the market justifies that kind of incursion, while the educators are waiting for more third-party–verified research studies.”

New Market a Challenge

The biggest question mark is not just whether educators will accept comics as teaching materials on a broader scale, but whether traditional comics publishers, who only began to get their graphic novels into the general bookstore market in the last 10 years, are prepared to capitalize on the opportunity.

“Comics publishers are lagging behind traditional book publishers,” says Janna Morishima, director of the Diamond Kids Group at Diamond Comics Distributors. “Creating for kids hasn’t been a big priority until rather recently. I think they’re still getting used to the book market, and the educational market is an even more specialized part of the market. They are at a bit of a disadvantage.”

For DC Comics, home of Superman and Batman and, with Marvel, one of the “Big Two” mainstream comics publishers, the most efficient way to deal with their relative lack of expertise in educational publishing was simply to switch to a distributor that already possessed it. DC moved from Hachette to Random House Distribution in 2007.

“This discussion of how to expand our market was a crucial factor when we moved distribution. One of the more impressive things in the Random House package was the systems they have to access the school and library markets,” says John Cunningham, v-p of marketing at DC Comics. “Understanding their needs and how to sell and market to them is an enormously complex undertaking. Plugging our materials into [Random House’s] system made more sense than trying to develop systems of our own.”

For publishers who don’t have the option of signing on with a distribution giant like Random House, however, industry experts say there are still plenty of ways to make inroads into classrooms, often by starting simply.

“Connect with the teachers who are using your titles, and they will be your low-cost or no-cost guides to this terra incognita,” Gutierrez says. “You probably have an enthusiastic pathfinder and guide in the educators out there, who would love to tell you how they’re using your material. If you don’t have that conversation to gather feedback from k–12 educators, you’re really doing message-in-a-bottle advertising and just throwing stuff out there.”

Evaluating Visual Literacy

Many teachers who want to use comics in k–12 classrooms say that they need more information about graphic novels in order to evaluate them as teaching materials, ranging from age recommendations and teaching guides to more complex measures, like Lexile scores—tools that most comics publishers don’t provide.

At least one comics publisher has taken that advice to heart and has created comprehensively researched and educator-tested comics works for use in the classroom. Toon Books, an imprint founded by Françoise Mouly, art editor of the New Yorker, publishes titles for children in kindergarten through third grade that were developed and tested with the hands-on help of teachers and reading specialists.

“The intent of Toon Books was specifically to provide comics for children who are just learning to read. That’s a very specific step in the development of the kids. You have to acknowledge that if you are publishing for children, you have to select an age level and vocabulary that has been vetted for degree of difficulty,” Mouly says. “This is a very different set of knowledge. I worked very hard with educators editorially, going to various schools and watching the kids reading our books, so that we didn’t take anything for granted.”

Toon Books was also among the first graphic novel publishers to analyze its books using the Lexile scale, a system designed to measure the difficulty of a text and help teachers assess its suitability for students at different reading levels. Although an external measure of academic rigor could potentially add credibility to comics in the eyes of teachers, the Lexile system is designed to assess only text, ignoring the visual component in a medium where images and words are inextricably linked. “It’s evaluating [the text] as though there are no visual cues. It’s apples and oranges in terms of what that means,” says Peter Coogan, director of the Institute for Comics Studies.

The visual component of comics may be difficult to quantify, but it is also part of what makes comics a valuable learning tool, particularly in an increasingly image-oriented world. “We’re a visual culture now, not a typographical culture,” Coogan says. “Comics teach visual literacy.”

Literacy isn’t simply being able to understand the written word, Mouly explains, but “being able to extract meaning from a printed page. There’s a kind of visual literacy that is innate. There’s a lot that kids are able to understand and an enormous amount of complexity that can be used. It’s like poetry: deceptively simple, and levels and levels of meaning can be brought out.”

At the same time, English and Language Arts teachers often have no training in visual narratives and need to learn new skill sets. Even those teachers who are enthusiastic about using comics face other institutional obstacles, such as the testing demands of the federal No Child Left Behind law, as well as any state or institutional requirements.

“I think that many teachers want to value comics and graphic novels in their classrooms, but are not sure how to do so,” notes Katie Monnin, an assistant professor at the University of North Florida who is researching ways for teachers to integrate visual literacy into standards-based classes. “Since there are so many federal mandates on their curricula, they want to make sure that they are teaching all of their goals and standards.”

Comics in the Classroom team: (l. to r.) Diamond CEO Steve Geppi; Darla Strouse, CBI director; Nancy Grasmick, Maryland supeintendent of education; John Snyder, Diamond; and Jonahtan Yagred, Disney.
Although comics programs in public schools may leave some superintendents dubious for that very reason, they need only look at the Comic Book Initiative in the state of Maryland for a model of a comics program that can work in standards-based classrooms. Five years ago, the Maryland State Department of Education launched a pilot program in a few school districts to teach lesson plans based on comics from a toolkit developed by Disney. The lessons were integrated into the voluntary portion of the state curriculum, and developed with extensive input from principals and teachers. “It was very vetted,” says Darla Strouse, director of the Comic Book Initiative.

An in-depth evaluation by the University of Maryland examined the motivational impact of using comics in the classroom, through focus groups of teachers, students, and parents. Strouse says, “It came back very positive. [The students] won’t put their hands down. You start with graphic novels and they’re so excited.” By the summer of 2008, the program’s success led to its expansion from eight schools to 160 schools, with similarly positive results. Although Strouse says that adopting a comics program might have been difficult without a supportive superintendent, she believes that Maryland “can be a jump start for other states” to launch similar projects.

Outside of the k–12 level, graphic novels and comics have also made their way into university classrooms, where they have been adopted as course texts in a variety of disciplines. “There’s a critical mass of [professors] who are pursuing this as a study, and they’re legitimizing the medium not only for their students but also for their departments,” says Coogan, adding, however, that many comics publishers doom their chances for course adoptions by their unwillingness to send free copies to professors.

“Comics publishers could be actively trying to cultivate relationships with university English departments,” suggests Aaron Kashtan, a teaching assistant who researches comics theory at the University of Florida. “At my university, the English department regularly holds book fairs where textbook publishers like Penguin and McGraw-Hill market their materials to the department’s instructors. These publishers do this because for each instructor who decides to adopt a textbook, 20-some students will then have to buy that textbook. Comics publishers don’t seem to have come to a similar realization that university students represent an untapped source of income.”

Top Shelf Productions co-publisher Chris Staros explains it this way, “If 100 university courses with 40 students each use a book on a regular basis, that’s 4,000 copies a year.” In the comics industry, where sales of the top graphic novels often run under 10,000 copies, those sales can constitute a significant base.

Coogan suggests that comics publishers still willing to ignore the sales potential of the educational market in favor of their established fan base might find it in their interest to take a longer view. “Comics are graying in many ways; there aren’t many eight-year-olds reading comics. Kids have so much media to experience now, there’s no guarantee kids will be exposed to comics. If comics aren’t careful as an industry, they’re going to become a nostalgia item for a niche market. Teaching comics definitely brings in new readers.”
—Laura Hudson; Publisher's Weekly

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Scholastic Parent and Child Magazine
December 22, 2008

Comic books dazzle kids with gripping stories and spectacular artwork. In the form of sturdy hardcovers, TOON Books blend art and words into a class act. Publisher Francoise Mouly shares how these smart comics help children master reading skills.

Parent and Child: What made you want to creat TOON Books?

Francoise Mouly: When I met my husband, comics were not taken seriously. There were a lot of prejudices, so at that point I had a mission: to make beautifully produced books of comics. That became less necessary as they became more successful. But as [Art Spiegelman and I] had our own experience as parents, with our daughter (now 21) and our son (now 16), I discovered a great need. It seemed that comics for young kids as books was something that would be really helpful in an era where everybody's decrying the fact that kids are not reading anymore.

Parent and Child: So you think comics can help kids learn to read?

Francoise Mouly: Absolutely. The great thing about a comic is that it's a visual narrative flow, so kids can get into it without having to be taught all of the difficult logistics of deciphering the words. It's much more intuitive. It's not just semantic concepts of the words; it's so much more that is being communicated by intonation and facial expressions and gestures--and that is actually represented in a visual narrative.

Parent and Child: As you were creating TOON Books, what kind of curriculum and reading concerns did you take into account?

Francoise Mouly: I found out that doing comics for very young children forces you to get to the essence of the medium, because you can't use any aartifice. You have to be crystal clear in your communication. I worked with one teacher who was incredibly helpful. I would ask the artist to do a first draft of the story, and then she would vet that--she would go over it word by word and explain which words were difficult. It goes [by] fast, but there's a moment where kids have a little bit of phonetics and some sight words, but every balloon is an effort, so it has to be words that they've had. It's not like you can't introduce new words, but when you do, you have to be aware of it and then give whatever cues are necessary--sometimes visual cues. So we invented solutions after we saw the various problems. For example, in one of the books, some of the words were stretching the possibilities a bit, so we put in a little rebus to illustrate those words. The word "ghost", for example, is not the most obvious word to have to read, so we put a little picture of a ghost. We didn't use the same solution in every book; we kept looking for ways to use the medium in terms of sound effects or captions.

Parent and Child: How have the librarians responded to the books?

Francoise Mouly: When we launched the first three books, librarians' reactions were--"Where have you been all along? These are so fabulous; we want them!" [Then] I went to a panel at the Public Library Association and answered questions from librarians, and I was shocked because they were saying "OK, what we really need is nonfiction comics." They were taking it all for granted and saying, "So now we need this, this, and this." So I'm working on the nonfiction TOON book.

Parent and Child: And teachers?

Francoise Mouly: I worked with teachers in Maryland, because they have a comic book initiative in the state. We sent the TOON books to first and second grade teachers and had them use them with their classrooms. We got great feedback from them, including a number of teachers who said things like, "I was using this with my class and then the special ed teacher just came up and said, 'Where did you get this? I NEED this! I have to have this!'" because the kids were so enthusiastic. Of course in school they wouldn't use the TOON books instead of textbooks; this is all supplemental reading.

Parent and Child: So the kids' response has been positive, too?

Francoise Mouly: Yes, very immediate. Comics invite repeated readings, because there's more to find in the images. In the first reading you get the story, but in the second reading you get all of the little supporting players, all of the ways that the theme is conveyed. Immediately [the kids] start talking about their interest in making their own comics. I think comics are a medium where kids can get readily involved--there's something in it for them that is decipherable. Another thing that worked really well is that a child of 6 or 7 who's entering school and is supposed to learn to read at that moment will not be caught dead reading a "baby book"--an illustrated book--but comics are perceived as a big kid medium, so they're delighted to be given comics.

Parent and Child: Do you have any advice for parents with a kid who's into pictures and spatial relationships more than text?

Francoise Mouly: Often what teachers will do, which is very effective, is let the kid talk about the book before they read it. They'll show the cover and say, "What do you think this story is about?" That's interesting--to let the kid find out how much of it she can figure out on her own. Also I think if parents can share the pleasure of reading--find a thing that they like themselves and simply never turn it into anything other than a pleasure--then no doubt that that will yield a kid who will like the experience.
—Rachael Taaffe; Scholastic.com

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Clark Kent's Lunchbox
December 17, 2008

Out of all five of our kids, four of them are either reading or just getting started. Noah, age 9 is making the leap to basic chapter books, Allie has already established her dominance of the English language as a first grader, testing at a third grade level in her recent aptitude tests, while her sister Avery is making similar strides in Kindergarten. Harrison who is also in Kindergarten has actually been complaining that he's not learning words fast enough to read the books that interest him. This is all fine by me. I mean, who's going to argue that they'd actually prefer to have illiterate kids playing video games on their couch for then next year thirty years? Not me, which is why when The Book Report Network asked me to review Teen Books for them, I could almost envision a life of peace and quiet as I caught up on re-runs of Matlock during my cruise to Florida.

Toon Books are a series written for children in a comic book format. I know the first impression one might get of comic books is that of superheroes flying around on a few pages stapled together in between a glossy paper cover, but that's not what we're talking about here. The idea behind Toon Books is to combine the feeling of action created through multiple illustrated frames along with stories designed to foster the skills of beginning-level readers.

The first volume I read was Jack and The Box written and illustrated by Art Spiegelman, who had won the Pulitzer Prize for his powerful graphic novel Maus, A Survivor's Tale as well as recognition for a number of other works. In this Toon Book, Spiegelman tells the story of Jack and his newest toy, a goofy Jack in the box who does not fail when it comes to providing surprises. The drawing style manages to convey a bouncy sort of feel, while the words are simple and easy to read. Allie and Avery chose this book as their favorite. It's perfect for kids from Kindergarten through 2nd grade, and if they are fans of Dr Seuss then they'll like Jack and The Box just as much.

Stinky by Eleanor Davis was the next volume I looked at. It's a charming story (yes, I just used the word "charming") of a swamp monster named Stinky who learns about the misperceptions he has after a little boy starts hanging out near Stinky's home. The illustrations are colorful and well-drawn making for good eye candy, but at the same time, move the story along. I liked the fact it's broken down into a couple chapters, which makes it perfect for our kids to read before bed and still allow for a few minutes discussion about the message behind the story. And honestly, who can resist a purple polka-dotted creature that loves pickled onions and has a pet named Wartbelly?

The Last Toon Book is Mo and Jo and it incorporates the traditional superhero element of comics without sacrificing a clear moral lesson on getting along with others and working together. The story itself is about Joey and his sister Mona, who like all siblings, manage to fight about every petty little thing. When the mailman makes a surprising delivery involving a costume from the crime fighter, The Mighty MoJo, Joey and Mona, inherit his superpowers. Unfortunately, brother and sister can't quite get their act together fighting the villain Saw-Jaw until it's almost too late. Like Stinky, this book, which was written by Jay Lynch of Garbage Pail Kid fame, is broken into chapters again making it convenient for reading. The chapter also allows readers to take in the all the action illustrated by Dean Haspiel who has also drawn for DC and Marvel Comics which probably explains why, all of all the Toon Books, this one has the closest feel to an actual comic.

Each of these books is designed for readers in the Kindergarten through the 2nd Grade and run about 12.95. That might seem steep at first, but keep in mind these are high quality books written by pedigreed award winning authors and illustrators bound in a durable hardcover.

Combined with the other Toon Book titles, they make a great collection that will survive enough wear and tear to last for all your children. In fact, I've spent the weekend tossing the things around like ninja darts for a couple hours and the kids could still read them after I pilled them out of sheetrock. Toon Books are the books you will keep around for the grandchildren to read and your grown children will recall them so fondly they will fight over them after you die. That's all fine by me as long as my kids aren't still living in the basement counting the days until my demise.

Anyone can purchase Toon Books from all major wholesalers or through Diamond Book Distributors. There's even an avenue to order Toon Books for schools and libraries (there's even lesson plans associated with each book). You can also learn more about these titles to include their authors and illustrators at Toon Books. I'm not getting any huge kickbacks for this review or to tell you to purchase these books, but if you don't want to be handing half your social security check over to your adult offspring so they can blow it on Playstation (version 19), then Toon Books is at least something to consider as a tool to improve their ability to read more than just game cheat codes
—Clark Kent's Lunchbox

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Postcards from the Mothership
December 14, 2008

In part one of this mini-series on helping your kids to fall in love with books, I talked about a new website full of books suggestions. This post is about a great set of new books that I was offered for mid-November. Not just any books, but comic books for beginning readers.

I might have mentioned before, we come by a love of comics books honestly in our home. Beloved studied illustration before formally moving on to animation program, and our basements is crammed to the rafters (literally!) with the paltry remains of his once-legendary comic book collection, largely skewed to the 1980s superhero genre. And at the tender age of six, Tristan is already creating his own comic books. So when the nice people from TOON Books sent me a pitch offering me a couple of free high-end hardcover books for beginning readers, I couldn't say "yes" fast enough.

Here's the pitch that hooked me:

Since the early days of comics, parents, and teachers have experienced a challenge: Kids, even reluctant readers, love comics, but are comics good for them?

With TOON Books, the solution has arrived. Authored by illustrious cartoonists and children book artists, edified with the highest literary standards, and thoughtfully making use of controlled vocabulary, the new books are perfect for emerging readers four and up. The series, developed by Francoise Mouly (Art Editor of the New Yorker) with Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Art Spiegelman (MAUS) as Advisor, builds on tradition of excellence in children's literature: young readers will fall in love with these books and return to them over and over again. The luxuriously produced hardcovers are gifts that they'll treasure for years to come.

They sent us three books: Jack and The Box, Mo and Jo, and Stinky. The very first night, Tristan read the entire Jack and The Box book from cover to cover out loud to Beloved and Simon. That's 30-odd pages, and he's only in Grade one. I was so impressed! And it's not an overly simplistic book either. That's what I liked about these books, that they're accessible without being condescending. Beloved and Tristan took turns reading the next two books out loud over the subsequent nights.

The same week we received and devoured our TOON books, Art Spiegelman was interviewed on my favourite radio program, CBC's Q. There's an article about the books, and you can listen to his interview from the CBC sight. It's really quite fascinating, the philosophy behind reclaiming the comic book genre for beginning readers. I was particularly intrigued by the discussion about how Jack and The Box is even a bit on the scary side, from a child's point of view, and how they attributed kids with a level of sophistication and cognizance that a lot of beginning-reader books simply do not. They also talk about how comic books add a nuance in expression and interaction that regular picture books do not. Even if you don't get the books, which I highly recommend, the interview makes for some thoughtful discussion.

Am I raving a bit? It's genuine. I honestly love these books, and can't wait to go out and add some more to our collection.
—Danigirl; Postcards from the Mothership

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Suburban Turmoil Reviews
November 24, 2008

If you want your kid to be the hippest preschooler on the block... or if want to simply spark a new interest in reading in him or her, check out the Toon Book series.

Created by Francoise Mouly, Art Editor of the New Yorker, each Toon Book is the work of famous cartoonists and children's book artists (Art Spiegelman, wrote and illustrated one of the newest in the series), and is specifically designed to encourage reading and vocabulary skills in young readers.

I read the latest three Toon Books to Punky and Bruiser and I have to say, they were totally engrossed, which made their older sisters happy, because we are all comic book junkies. I'm really excited that these books are helping the youngest members of our family develop what I hope to be will be a lifelong love of comic books, while at the same time, encouraging their burgeoning reading skills.
—SuburbanTurmoilReviews.blogspot.com

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Back to Books
November 23, 2008

TOON Books are a new set of graphic novels aimed at the emerging reader. They are written and illustrated by professional artists/authors and are wildly intriguing for the young reader. My son who is reading at a Gr. 2 level enjoyed these immensely. The three I am reviewing are the second and latest set (Aug. 2008) to be released.

Jack and the Box by Art Spiegelman is printed in the traditional horizontal format of a picture book and is the easiest to read of these three. Large print and easy (K-1) vocabulary along with a funny story about a gift jack-in-the-box with a sense of humour; along with the wonderful illustrations make this an addictive read for children. If your child can read the title, they will be able to read the book. Lots of fun!

Stinky by Eleanor Davis is for a little more experienced reader (Gr. 1 -2). My son read this very well and he is one who struggles with reading. But the wonderful story of a Stinky swamp creature who hates clean little kids but meets a friend in a boy who seems to like the exact same mucky, gross things he does is an appealing story for boys. One that will keep kids reading just for the fun of it. Divided into chapters this book gives a good sense of accomplishment when finished by the emergent reader.

Mo and Jo: Fighting Together Forever by Dean Haspiel and Jay Lynch is again for the more experienced reader, divided into chapters and is the highest reading level of the lot, approx Gr.2-3. My struggling reader had some difficulties with the vocabulary but with a little help from Mum and Dad he was eager to read the super hero story. With both a girl and boy character this should appeal to both, though I think boys are going to love this one for sure. Every boy's dream of becoming a superhero comes true when Mo and Jo's mailman comes to their house and admits that he is the Mighty Mojo but he is retiring and would like to give them his costume which contains his powers.

As a parent I was thrilled with these enticing books that held my reluctant reader's interest and kept him reading page after page without any pressure from mum or dad to just try and read one more page. In fact we all liked them so much I've ordered the first three for Christmas presents this year and look forward to the next books that will published next year. These 'early readers' are a fabulous use of the graphic novel format.

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Newsarama
November 12, 2008

The notion of comics made expressly for kids is nothing new, but Toon Books, Francoise Mouly's new-fangled publishing line, it notably different in that it produces comics exclusively for very young readers. It's the sort of idea that seems so ingenious you why someone else didn't think it first.

Anyway, the line has three new books out for the fall -- Stinky by Eleanor Davis, Jack and The Box by Art Spiegelman and Mo and Jo: Fighting together Forever by Dean Haspiel and Jay lynch. They saw that adults reviewing children's books -- be it comics or prose -- is a mug's game, as we're not the intended audience for the material (I suppose educators, librarians and those with fancy-schmancy degrees exempt from this declaration). It's not a theory I necessarily ascribe to -- I tend to think quality and craft shine through regardless of how narrowly focused the work is on a particular type of reader. Yet, there's still something to be said for getting an addition perspective. To that end I asked my seven-year-old daughter, Veronica to give me her impressions of these books as well. Here's what we had to say:

Jack and The Box by Art Spiegelman:

The Plot: Jack's parents freak him out by buying him a jack-in-the-box with the face of a crazed serial killer. The toy, named Zack, keeps popping out and being aggressive and frightening -- sorry, I mean silly. Eventually he leaves his box altogether and starts hopping around the room, a la The Cat in Hat, spewing tiny men and baby ducks everywhere until a lamp is broken. Thankfully, Zack atones by replacing the lamp and order is restored once more.

I sez: As you can by above summation, I found Zach and his antics to be more menacing and scary than charming and hilarious. Perhaps it's because I just finished reading Spiegelman's Breakdowns recently, which also features a father giving his son a present, though with more horrific consequences. Perhaps that work is coloring my perspective on this one.

Still, the bit with the ducks is funny, and my kids seemed to like it, so perhaps I'm projecting or being overly protective. My best bet would be to say it's a good book for kids who aren't prone to being creeped out by their toys. If your child is one of those who needs two night lights, three stuffed animals and five checks in the closet for monsters before going to bed, this may not be the book for them.
Veronica sez: "I liked it. Not only does it have words little kids can read, like 'hi,' it has things kids seem to like. It got me really happy. The best part was when the ducks and ducklings came out of his hat. I didn't like it when Jack got angry at the box. He got a little mad. I would recommend it to people who like surprises -- people who like things that turn out to be more than they expected."
Mo and Jo: Fighting Together Forever by Dean Haspiel and Jay Lynch.

The Plot: Mo and Jo are typical siblings, meaning that they fight all the time and over everything. Ever after the Mighty Mojo gives them his supersuit with its special magic powers, they argue over who can save the town the best. Can they stop arguing and work together to stop the evil Saw-Jaw from wrecking havoc? Is the Pope Catholic?

I sez: As with Otto's Orange Day, Lynch proves he had a real knack for writing comics for the very young. There are no real surprises here -- you can see the resolution by page 2 -- but Haspiel's angular style serves his well here and adds a nice layer of frivolity to the proceedings (I particularly liked the Mighty Mojo's pronounced chin). His layouts are inventive and dynamic and his color choices are bright and bold. I wish he colored his own work all the time.

Veronica Sez: "This was my favorite. I liked it when they co-operated together. I also liked it when they found out what their powers were. I didn't like it when the bad guy was close to winning."

It's full of excitement. It shows you should co-operate and take turns. I would recommend it to people who are interested in stuff like superpowers and bad guys and fights that turn out good."

Stinky by Eleanor Davis

The Plot: Stinky is a monster who lives in the swamp, eats smelly onions, enjoys being left alone and is deathly afraid of children. So of course, it isn't too long before a boy in town next door builds a treehouse in the swamp, completely oblivious to Stinky. Can the monster make him leave or will they overcome their differences and learn how to be friends? (That's a rhetorical question. You don't need to answer it.)

I sez: This was my favorite of the three. Eleanor Davis is swiftly becoming one of the most talented cartoonists of her generation and Stinky just underscores that assessment. I loved the attention to detail she put into this book, whether it was the jar of pickled bananas next to Stinky's bed or the town map that graces the inside back cover. You can tell she had a lot of fun making this book and that infectiousness is easily carried over in the reading of it.

Veronica sez: "I liked how Stinky didn't know things that were true. The best part is when they become friends. I didn't like how he didn't know that kids were nice. The first time I read it I didn't know if he was going to kidnap the boy. The second time I read it, I felt better.

"I would recommend it to someone who likes stories about good tricks and bad tricks and who knows that it doesn't matter if people are different.

Also, I want a triple lolipop like the girl on page 11."
—Chris Mautner; Newsarama.com

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Comicsgirl
November 12, 2008

We've read all those articles I like to mercilessly mock. You know the ones that have headlines like "Zap!" "Pow!" "Bang!" Comics Aren't Just for Kids Anymore! They tell you that there are a bunch of comics out that have all kinds of terribly adult things in them and people are actually taking comics seriously now. Or something.

And sure, they need to stop writing these articles, but they make me a little sad for other reasons.

Kids like comics. Kids deserve comics. You know you had more than a few Archie Comics digests lying around and you probably enjoyed your share of Disney comics. This was long before you picked up any of the superhero stuff. You liked comics as a kid.

While there's some exceptions, while everyone was busy trying to make comics all serious, people forgot about making comics for kids, or began to view them as somehow less interesting and inferior to adult stuff.

Art Spiegelman, whose "Maus" is often cited in those "comics aren't for kids!" articles, and his wife Francoise Mouly, created Toon Books, comic-book style books for the youngest of readers, ages 4-8. And they are really awesome. I know I am often accused at having the same tastes of a 5-year-old, but I absolutely loved these. I was delighted to be provided with review copies of all three.
Spiegelman's own Jack and the Box is probably for the youngest end of the target age group. It's definitely a beginner's book, with lots of repeated words and sounds as well follow the silliness with his bold art and color palette of muted primary colors. I found the jack-in-the-box to be a little scary looking, but there is still playfulness to him. This reminded me quite a bit of the spirit of Dr. Seuss' Cat in the Hat and that's not faint praise. This belongs on your child's shelf.
Despite the word balloons, Eleanor Davis' Stinky feels like a classic' children's picture book. It brought back memories of Arnold Lobel's Frog and Toad series for me. Our title character, Stinky is a troll-like creature who likes everything that smells bad. He has a pet toad, lives in a swamp and dines on anything pickled. He gets scared when a new boy, Nick, approaches his forest. It's a neat reversal of roles -- the monster being afraid of the human -- and Stinky, despite his habits, comes across pretty sweet. Davis' art is adorable and round, giving the story a gentleness. There are also funny visual gags, like sleeping bugs and a hedgehog with a clothespin over his nose. The ultimate lesson of not judging people (or monsters) by appearances is always a good one. I giggled a lot at this book and was quite charmed by it. While I know some children who I should probably share this book with, I may be keeping it for myself.

Mo and Jo Fighting Together Forever, written by Jay Lynch with art by Dean Haspiel, feels the most like a comic book out of all three. It's probably for the older readers of the age range, too. Mo and Jo are squabbling siblings who are given a super-suit by the Mighy MoJo. After they rip it in half, their mom creates two new suits from it for each of them, each with different powers.

In true comic book style, the brother and sister pair each decide they have what it takes to fight Lizard-like Saw Jaw. Mo uses her stretchy arms and Jo uses his magnet boots, but neither can defeat Saw Jaw alone. So of course the siblings learn they have to work together in order to beat the bad guy. While the outcome was pretty obvious for me from the start (I am of course much older than the target demographic of this book), and enjoys playing with them. Lynch's dialogue is snappy and the siblings' exchanges ring true as they try to outdo each other. This is the perfect book for the budding superhero comic book fans in your life, and maybe they'll learn something along the way.

When I wrote about the children's comic panel at SPX, I joked and I hoped there would be articles proclaiming, "comics aren't just for adults anymore." I love that there are more and more great comics out for children now. Don't get me wrong -- I like that there are more serious and mature comics out there, too, but I think there's plenty of room for all of it. I love that imprints like Toon Books are dedicated to that cause.
—Comicsgirl.com

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Diamond Bookshelf
August 25, 2008

The Fall Releases of TOON books, a line of easy-reader graphic novels edited by Françoise Mouly and Art Spiegelmean, feature unique works from cartoonists whose names are not immediately associated with traditional children's literature. By combining the necessary simplicity of an Easy Reader with influences from underground comix and independent graphic novels, the resulting titles are wacky, inventive and adventurous; yet also instructive and easy to follow for young readers.

Stinky by Eleanor Davis, tells the tale of an adorable monster named Stinky who is afraid of children. When a new kid starts spending time in his swamp, Stinky tries everything to get rid of him, but eventually learns that even monsters can make new friends. Eleanor Davis, a recent graduate from the Savannah College of Art and Design, is known for her quirky and beautiful self-published work.

Mo and Jo: Fighting Together Forever by Jay Lynch and Dean Haspiel. is the story of super hero twins Mona and Joey, who won't stop fighting each other. When their town parade is threatened by the evil anthropomorphic reptile Saw-Jaw, Mo and Jo must learn to cooperate and combine their powers. Mo and Jo is written by Jay Lynch (also the author of TOON Book's Otto's Orange Day) who is known as the founder of Bijou Funnies, one of the first and most important underground comics of the sixties, and for many years wrote the weekly syndicated comics strip, Phoebe the Pigeon People. Mo and Jo's eye-popping artwork is by Dean Haspiel, whose comics work includes collaborations with Harvey Pekar and Jonathan Ames, as well as his original series Billy Dogma.

These dynamic creators were gracious enough to answer some questions for Bookshelf about their new books and the diverse experiences they brought into creation.

Bookshelf: What is your background in both cartooning and children's books? What sort of work had you been doing prior to your involvement with TOON Books?

Jay Lynch: As far as children's books go, the majority of what I've done to make a living has to do with doing stories involving licensed characters. I have worked on several internally created series for the Topps Company such as Wacky Packages, Garbage Pail Kids, Dinosaur Attacks, Hollywood Zombies and so on. And I have had a hand in their creation and development. In the '60s and '70s I wrote and drew my own underground comix. From 1979 to 1985 or so I wrote a weekly newspaper strip called Phoebe the Pigeon People, which was drawn by Gary Whitney. In the 90s I wrote for Mad Magazine. When Time Magazine ran comics, my wife and I wrote gags for the Cultural Jetlag feature that Jim Spacey drew for Time. When 9-11 happened though, Time dropped all their comic strips. When Françoise called me about the TOON Books project, it was at a time when Topps has revived both Wacky Packages and Garbage Pail Kids, and I was doing new gags for both of these series then. So I was challenged by Françoise's project since it involved a whole new kind of thing... not just repeating a formerly successful product but devising a new type of thing.

Eleanor Davis: TOON Books was my first big professional job! I was still a senior in college when Françoise approached me with the project. Before TOON Books I had mostly done comics aimed at an older, 'Indy' audience. Stinky was a fun (and challenging) departure from my usual work.

Dean Haspiel: For over twenty years, I've illustrated stories that range from superhero fiction to semi-autobiogrpahical memoir for all the major comic book publishers, including Marvel, Dark Horse, Top Shelf, and DC Comics. I'm best known for my creation Bill Dogma, and for my collaborations with Harvey Pekar on the The Quitter and American Splendor.

Bookshelf: What led to your involvement with TOON Books?

Jay Lynch: Art Spiegelman and I have known each other since we were kids. As teenagers we did cartoons for little magazines that we printed on hectographs (an ancient, obsolete form of reproduction that has been replaced by the modern xerox). Art is the guy who originally hired me to freelance for Topps in 1966, and we always followed what the other had been doing cartoon-wise. So Art knew of all the sticker albums I did and stuff, as did Françoise. And one day, about three years ago, Françoise phoned me with her TOON Books idea.

Eleanor Davis: Françoise e-mailed me to ask if I would be interested, and I jumped at the chance. She had come across my web page and thought I had potential.

Dean Haspiel: Françoise Mouly wrote me a flattering letter along with preliminary mock-ups of some of their TOON books inviting me to co-create a concept with an underground comix legend Jay Lynch for their first year launch. I couldn't deny such an opportunity from such important innovators.

Bookshelf: How would you compare the experience of creating comics for adults with that of creating essay-readers for children? What differences and similarities do you encounter visually, textually and/or thematically?

Jay Lynch: Well... there is a great deal of stuff aimed at children that is kind of condescending. And there is a great deal of stuff aimed at adults that is pretty condescending as well. But Françoise understands that... and her books aren't talking down to kids. I don't think there is any major difference in talking to kids through comics and talking to adults through comics, except maybe for the kids the vocabulary is simpler... and the way the story is told is simpler, since the kids are new to the comics medium. But I am a strong proponent of the simple told take... be it for adults or be it for kids.

Eleanor Davis: When I create comics for kids. I try to channel my younger shelf, and remember the things I was interested in and responded to in my childhood. I hate it when grownups write books about what they think kids should be interested in, rather than what they actually are interested in. They easy reader issue was trickier; certain subjects were challenging simply because their words are more difficult to read- I remember we were unsure if "ghosts" might be a little hard for that reading level.

Dean Haspiel: Despite the obvious differences of what constitutes children's fare versus what adults expect to read, I believe clarity is key for all successful stories and, believe it or not, children are less forgiving if the story doesn't make certain sense. You can draw abstract images and purport crazy notions but the story must be engaging and have an internal logic or it's forever lost. Kids spend an inordinate amount of their time world-building. Whereas adult fare allows for ambiguous ideas because, eventually, we come to learn that there are no satisfying answers to our questions despite how much we try to understand life and control fate.

Both Stinky and Mo and Jo deal with characters learning how to relate to each other. How do you approach this familiar topic in a unique way?

Jay Lynch: The librarians around where I live (upstate NY) have told me that kids gravitate towards the superhero stuff in the libraries. It was Françoise's idea to have the kids as superheros, and it is a good idea... It should get kids to read Mo and Jo. It's a self-contained story. Most of the superhero books are continued from issue to issue and they are able to grasp a lot of material, or to follow the stories that are continued from month to month. I think they know f the superhero characters from the movies and the animated cartoons. With Mo and Jo, they get a clear, easily readable, easily understandable tale that teaches a lesson.

Eleanor Davis: I thought kids would have a fun time with the idea of something they're usually scared of- monsters- actually being afraid of them. I hoped kids would get a kick out of Stinky's 'gross' lifestyle, and think his misconceptions about human kids were funny.

Dean Haspiel: Jay Lynch and I were asked to create a story using the superhero genre and we though about conflict and what that means between kids and, specifically, siblings. I remember the fights I had with my brother growing up and wished we had combined our forces to get what we wanted rather than butt heads and waste negative energy. It was that very conceit that became the genesis of our story.

What, in your experience, can the comic book medium contribute to early literacy?

Jay Lynch: I learned to read from comic books long before I entered first grade. The pictures explain the words... And the "fun" nature of a comic book tale makes the kid WANT to read it to find out what's gong on. The format provides motivation to the kids to learn to decipher the words.

Eleanor Davis: My sister and I both learned to read very early, and we both learned to read from comic books. My parents always had lots of good kids comics around- Little Lulu, Donald Duck, stuff like that. For a young reader, comics are a lot less daunting than regular books, or even picture books. You can often understand the story even without reading the words, so you can pick up the words here and there when you're ready for them. If you get stuck on a word you don't know, it's no big deal- you can just move on and figure it out later. The words are often more directly connected to their pictures, making them easier to interpret. The first words my sister could read were "HA HA HA HA" a piece of cake in a comic when they're always written next to a person laughing! In high school when I was a serious student of Japanese, I found this old method could work very well for foreign languages also. In fact, I recommend it!

Dean Haspiel: When I was very young, comix taught me about people's agendas and behavioral context which then helped me to better express my feelings and ideas. I can only assume the same impact can help shape future kids.

Bookshelf: Is there anything you learned from this experience that might influence your future comics work?

Jay Lynch: Only that it is good to work with an intelligent editor. I can explain concepts and changes to Françoise on the phone and she knows what I am talking about. And when she wants changes, they ALL make good sense. These books are very well thought out...As an editor, Françoise is one in a million!

Eleanor Davis: Lots! I definitely learned that writing kids books is not any easier than grownup books. It is challenging in a whole different way! Next time I write a kids book I think I'll assemble a crack team of child advisors to help me out.

Dean Haspiel: It's incredibly difficult to reduce complex stuff about people and ideas into something brisk yet entertaining and serving kids expectations helps qualify those challenges for me as a storyteller and artist. You learn to cut the fat while indulging the heart and mind.
—DiamondBookshelf.com

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Teachers and Writer's Magazine
Summer 2008

Susan Karwoska: You've published comics for children before, with the Little Lit books. What's the difference about this new series you are publishing, Toon Books?
Françoise Mouly: One of the most distinctive differences is that the Little Lit books were meant for all ages. We wanted to do a collection of strips that could appeal to a very young child but could also appeal to an eight- or ten-year-old or even to an adult. With the Toon books we were building from here and also narrowing it down to a very specific moment in childhood development where you enter into school, where you enter into literacy. What we wet out to do was to share our love of books, of books in general, of the printed object.

SK: Is the process of publishing comics for kids different from publishing them for adults?
FM: With adults, as long as the work is clear you can ask the reader to follow along with something that may be unfamiliar. With comics for kids, the artist has a somewhat different task. He has to be just as clear, maybe even more so, but he shouldn't presuppose, "Oh well, they'll know what I mean."

In the Toon Books we go out of our way to intertwine the two spirals of the visual and the word narratives. First of all we vet the vocabulary to make sure to use words the kids know or would be able to decipher. When there's a word that they don't know, we subtly illustrate it in a way to allow them to learn that word. And then so much information is carried in the facial expressions, in the staged play, that you don't need the words to understand that part of the story, so you can use the words to carry something else. It's like writing a symphony. You don't have the oboe and the violin play the same score because you don't need to. Here you have many instruments and they complement each other to create a very textured story.

SK: Would you say this intertwining of the verbal and visual narratives is the main difference between illustrated children's books and comics?
FM: It's a very big difference. In illustrated books, the way they are traditionally done for young children, there's often a redundancy between the text and the pictures. In children's book publishing, I found out, editors often make themselves look at the manuscript without looking at the visual treatment or the pictures. They feel that's the best way to assess the literary value of the book. If they accept the story the way it is written, then they will go and pair it with an illustrator, so by the time they think about the visual flow of the story a number of decisions have been made already. Whereas I start with a much rougher treatment of story and character and then, with the artist, work endlessly on how to tell the story, the visual breakdowns.

When I developed the Toon Books series, I wanted to make use of my access to the best artists and the most creative ideas and talents and stories. For the most part what I'm interested in is a narrative artist -- someone who has a story to tell and has a visual means of expression. And most of the time this will be a cartoonist, a comic strip artist. It's not the same thing as an illustrator. If you look at most of the classic children's books, whether Eloise,or The Cat in the Hat, or Maurice Sendak's In the Night Kitchen, or Make Way for Ducklings, or Olivia by Ian Falconer, those are visual narratives. Those are not paragraphs of text that have been vetted and then given to an illustrator. Those are artists telling stories.

SK: William Steig's books for children work this way as well. I loved reading tem to my kids -- the pictures are wonderful and the language operates on so many levels.
FM: Steig is also an artist who was given free rein, and you get a completely different kind of story when you let the artist express himself. What is shown is different if it's the artist who writes the story.

SK: Putting comic books in the schools would seem like the ultimate subversive thing to do in this day and age when so much in education is geared toward test results. It has been shown, though, that teaching kids creative writing can help them achieve the very goals that the testing is designed to measure. It does this in a way, however, that makes it much easier for them to retain because it moves them, excites them. you are making the claim that bringing comics into the classroom can offer the same benefits, so why do you think there's such resistance to doing this?
FM: There's a misunderstanding, I think, about literacy, and part of it seems to be cultural, and seems to be rooted in a distrust of the visual, and in a distrust of pleasure. The problem with comics is that comics are fun, and that's why educators and parents and congressmen -- there were congressional hearings against comics! -- were so afraid of them. There's a suspicion of anything that kids like, and that includes rap music and rock and roll, and comics. There is a kind of unspoken but very influential assumption that if kids like something it's probably not good for them, and that if it's educational it should taste like bitter medicine. But I think there is just as much reason for optimism, because there is a new generation of parents that is more open-minded because they've had first-hand experience with comic books, so that they're not as afraid.

SK: Michael Bitz, founder of The Comic Book Project, said in an interview that reading and writing comic books also teaches kids sequencing, and character development, and the mechanics of writing, and other such skills. It uses a different form to do it, but the kids are still learning those things.
FM: Well that's the thing. One of the reasons I've gotten so passionate about publishing comics for children is that I really do believe comics can save the world! It sounds like an exaggeration to say that but it's at least a guiding idea. First of all, with comics you get an easier point of entry into the book, into literature, because you have that guiding hand that takes you through the story, so you get all of the mechanics, as Michael was pointing out. You get reading left to right, from top to bottom, in a way that is intuitively apprehensible. You get the fact that a story has a beginning, a middle, and an end, so for example, when I was reading a one-page comic strip with my six-year-old son, after one or two comics he's saying, "Oh, I want to read this," and he's pointing to the punch line that is in the lower right-hand corner. And al of the sudden I'm stopped dead in my tracks because I realize that he's just realized that the story has an arc and that it lands here, no what we call the punch line, and that's such a profound lesson!

When I'm reading Benny and Penny with kids in schools, all of them do the same thing: they look at the cover, they get something from the title, they get something from the image, and they see the characters. The first chapter provides the introduction, the exposition, and the setting; the second chapter is the dilemma and the conflict writ large; and the third chapter is the resolution leading to the punch line. In the end everything that has been spelled out in these moments comes together. The kids not only experience this, but as soon as they are finished they are actually leafing back and they are finding those moments. Why? Because in a written book it's harder to remember where things happened. In a visual book you immediately go back, "Oh, I liked that moment." Because he comic book is a map, it's a diagram of the story, as well as the story itself. And the teachers have told me that's all they ever want; that when the students finish a story they talk about it, re-read it, re-inhabit it.

SK: Do you find, when you talk to the teachers, that they have a sense of whether this also translates into the kids' written work?
FM: Oh, absolutely. Because it dovetails right into their inner storytelling. It's a way of giving architecture to their world. Putting them in touch with another individual's mode of expression of a story prompts their own story-making; I've seen this when I take these comic books to schools. In fact, what Michael Bitz has seen, and what most people who do comics with kids have seen is that the kids' first response is often, "Oh, I want to do my own story!" Because one of the things that the kids perceive, and this is a really important, crucial thing, is that this is made by somebody. This is done by a human being. The drawing shows the hand of an individual. And because they're making up a character, so you could make up a character too. One of the things my husband [Art Spiegelman] has said is, "I learned to read from comics, and the minute I understood that comics were made by humans -- as opposed to robots, say -- I wanted to be a cartoonist." Also, when kids read these books, they're driving, they're in control, and that gives them a direct connection to wanting to make their own books, thinking, "I could do this!"

SK: You presented this series at the American Library Association mid-winter meeting this year. What was the response of the librarians at this conference?
FM: That was such a pleasure! The books were so well received! It completely surprised me the extent to which the librarians are ahead of the game. The knew that comics were great for kids -- they had one question and one question only: which comics? It is the librarians who are now at the forefront. And then it is the educators and the teachers. I've been talking to [Dr. Nancy Grasmick] the Superintendent of Schools in Maryland, and she has a "comics in the classroom" initiative, and she's actually adopting the Toon Books to give her students in first and second grade. It's fantastic! And the teachers are so eager, because once you remove that barrier saying, "Oh no, you can't use comics in the classroom," to bring something that the kids are so eager for is such a gift!

I don't want to pretend that all comics are great and any comic you give your kid is great. Comics can change the world an comics can be literature -- that's still controversial to say -- but no medium in and of itself is a magic bullet. There are plenty of bad books out there!

SK: But somehow with comics the content gets confused with the medium in a way that we've moved beyond in other art forms.
FM: You can hardly imagine now what it was like for Art to go around to publishers in New York and propose a comic book about the Holocaust. It was so, so controversial.

SK: Because how can you put those two things together...
FM: They slammed the door! A comic book about the Holocaust? How dare you? How dare you? It wasn't just that, oh, this is inappropriate. It was such an anathema. To such an extent that he was turned down by every publishing house in New York. Twenty-six rejection letters. And the only way that Maus got published -- we'd published it in Raw but the only way it got published as a book -- was that we knew the art director at Pantheon, and we said, your house turned us down and you can't turn us down. This is an important book! So we went in through the back door. The shifts that have come about since the publication of Maus are momentous! It's hard to even remember how it was back then.

But I also feel that something is getting lost here. In this enthusiasm for the legitimacy of comics it's now being put in another ghetto, but now it's the ghetto of the museum, and of cultural legitimacy, where ti's becoming something only for hip college students. Which is fabulous! Which is wonderful! Again, I dreamed about this, so I couldn't be more pleased, but it's leaving behind a natural constituency for comics. I realized, my God, I spent thirty years of my life trying to make the case that comics are not just for kids anymore, and I did to some extent. What my husband and I did had an impact, and now comics are taken seriously; Art won the Pulitzer Prize for Maus and now there is a National Book Award for comics; and museums and bookstores welcome them, but there are no comics for children! Starting Toon Books has allowed me to address this.

SK: What responses have you gotten to the books from kids?
FM: When I'm in a school, I listen to the kids reading the books I've brought and you can hear them struggling to decode the words at first, but within a page or two they are all over the book and reading it together and making the voices of the characters as they are reading, which is unheard of at that stage of development because usually they can't know what is being said until they've sounded it out. With comics they are actually able to get visual cues, so that when they are reading "Go Away!" in Benny and Penny, they know how to say it from the size of the balloon, and from the expression on the boy's face. They don't read Go Away, they read GO AWAY!! So all of the sudden they've gotten to the other side of reading.

The comics are just a means to an end, and the end is the information content, not just the mechanics of reading. The mechanics, in and of themselves, are hollow. If there is nothing for the kids in the reading of a book -- if it doesn't deliver pleasure, excitement, empathy with the characters, and so on, if kids are given the deadening kind of readers that my son was given -- then why on earth should they want to read?

It is important to expose kids to books that they could like. That should be the first step. I mean, kids love comics, and ti's good for them: why not use this? When you fall in love with a comic you fall in love with a printed object, you fall in love with a book, you fall in love with reading. End of story! After that, you basically have kids who love to read, and then all doors are open.
—Susan Karwoska; TWC.org

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Sequart Research and Literary Organization
May 29, 2008

When I reviewed the first batch of releases from TOON Books, I was amazed that no one had really thought of this idea before: comics in book form aimed at 4-6 year olds. Upon reading interviews with series director Françoise Mouly, it was interesting to hear that she actually pitched this idea to several different publishing houses before deciding to do it herself (under the aegis of RAW Junior, the publishing interest that she and husband Art Spiegelman used to publish their Little Lit line). She was flatly rejected across the board -- not because people thought the books were a bad idea, but because there was no category that had been created for them. Mouly blazed a trail with the simultaneous release of the first three books, which have been with great acclaim.

The next three books will be released on a staggered schedule, starting in August of 2008. The next three releases fit nicely with the first three, and differ mostly in that all three are by artists primarily know for being cartoonists, not children's book authors. Like that last set of books, each volume in the new batch has a slightly different appeal, both in terms of subject matter and age group.
—Rob Clough; Sequart.com

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Omnivoracious
May 16, 2008

The classy Little Lit gang has come up with something new, TOON Books, which they describe as "the first high-quality comics designed for children ages four and up. Each book in the collection is just right for reading to the youngest but, perhaps most remarkable, this is the first collection ever designed to offer newly-emerging readers comics they can read themselves. Each TOON Book has been vetted by educators to ensure that the language and the narratives will nurture young minds."

The first volumes in this hardcover series are Silly Lilly and the Four Seasons by Agnès Rosenstiehl, Benny and Penny in "Just Pretend" by Geoffrey Hayes, and Otto's Orange Day by Frank Cammuso and Jay Lynch. Silly Lilly is the least kinetic of the three, using a deliberately flat style and even tone to provide a primer on the four seasons. Benny and Penny, on the other hand, features two bickering mice who fight over the reality of a pirate ship. Otto's Orange Day uses exaggeration and good-natured banter to establish its mood. All three are note-perfect for what they're doing.
—Jeff VanderMeer; Omnivoracious.com

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Booklist: Interview with Françoise Mouly
May 2008

SZ: What made you decide to publish comics for such a young audience?
Mouly: I've always thought of reading as one of the most pleasurable activities around, but I was shocked to realize, when my own kids reached the age of six, that reading is only fun once you get on the other side of that massive literacy barrier. Comics saved the day for our family. When we emerged from nearly a year of nightly comics reading, I thought, "This has been far too pleasurable to keep to ourselves!"

SZ: The term early reader or emerging reader usually suggests controlled vocabulary and word counts. How are those factors being taken into consieration in TOON Books?
Mouly: I worked very closely with teachers and educators on the one hand, artists and authors on the other, from the conception fo the books through the editing process. We kept refining the stories, replacing hard words with easier ones, ad reworking the visual storytelling to provide a vivid, exciting reading experience. In 2005, the Maryland State Superintendent of Schools launched a "Comics in the Classroom" initiative that embraced the books. Teachers there are using them in kindergarten through second grades, as well as in some pre-K programs. Another extremely encouraging development for us is that Renaissance Learning has adopted TOON Books in their Accelerated Reader Program.

SZ: What do you say to educational conservatives who insist that comics aren't literature?
Mouly: Today's "graphic novels" (a euphemism adopted to pacify those educational conservatives) are in museums, bookstores, and libraries, and they win major book awards. The battle that my husband Art and I fought 30 years ago--for comics to be taken seriously--seems to have been won. I'd love to get those educational conservatives into the room with us when we read with first- and second-graders. Within a page or two, the kids are piled on top of the book, reading aloud together and actually doing the voices. They fully inhabit the story.

We live in an increasingly visual world; it's time to redefine literacy to include visual literacy, which is much more intuitive for children. Comics get kids to love books. My husband calls them "a gateway drug to literature."

SZ: Where there particular children's books or authors who influenced your vision of TOON Books?
Mouly: For me the gold standard is American children's book publishing of the 1940s and 1950s, which saw the emergence of authors like Margaret Wise Brown, Maurice Sendak, Crockett Johnson, and so many others. These talented artists and authors were given free rein, and each book was highly original. The result was a vibrant milieu of artists, really engaged with what they were doing, and we're still reading those books; they have become today's classics. I've tried to create a similar atmosphere for the artists who are doing our books.
—Stephanie Zvirin; BooklistOnline.com

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Time for Kids
April 25, 2008

Picture this: You are sitting in class and pow! Your teacher has been transformed into Superman. Bam! Your textbook is a top-secret manual on harnessing your own superpowers. Krak! A classmate has turned green and has quadrupled in size. Another is swinging across the room on a superstrong spider web. And Garfield is chasing Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse around a desk. What are comic book characters doing in a classroom?

In some places, they are part of the lesson. Schools around the country are using comic books to teach reading and other subjects. The Maryland State Department of Education has developed a comic book curriculum using classic Disney comics. After a successful test, it is being used in about 200 classrooms, and continues to expand. The state has introduced a new series of original comic books, Toon Books, in first and second grade. The series was created by Françoise Mouly, art editor of The New Yorker magazine, and her husband, Art Spiegelman, a prizewinning comics artist.

Another program, the Comic Book Project, aims to improve kids' reading and writing skills. It reaches 22,000 kids in 850 schools nationwide. The program was started in 2001 by Michael Bitz, of Teachers College at Columbia University, in New York City. Kids write and draw their own comic books. "There is a growing movement in education that's looking at literacy of all kinds," Bitz told TFK.

Should We Take Comics Seriously?
Comic books haven't always made the grade with parents and teachers. They were once seen as a waste of time or a source of concern. "Usually teachers tell us to put comics away," says Deshaun Osborne, a fifth grader at Magnolia Elementary, in Joppa, Maryland. "I was shocked to hear we'd be using comic books." His class is reading about women scientists in a collection written in comic book style.

As teachers seek creative ways to improve reading and writing scores, comic books are seen as a tool to get kids revved up about reading. Nancy Grasmick, Maryland's state schools superintendent, was inspired to use comics, in part, by kids' reactions. "Students would get so excited about reading comic books," she says.

Fans agree that comics help introduce kids to important features of fiction, such as narrative structure, tone and character development. They also include context clues for difficult words. "The teachers love it," says Grasmick. "They think it captures students' interest and contributes to accelerating reading skills." Darla Strouse, the head of the comics program in Maryland, points to one middle school teacher who reported that students who read graphic novels books that are similar to comicsowrite in greater depth.

But not everyone is convinced. Critics see comics as nothing more than empty entertainment. Diane Ravitch, an author and education professor at New York University, in New York City, says comics most often use too-simple story lines and language. "Students are not encouraged to think in complex ways about how language is used," Ravitch says. "(Comic books) are no more educational than watching children's favorite TV programs."

Coloring Inside, and Outside, the Lines
There are no studies to measure whether reading comics boosts test scores or skills. Still, the Comic Book Project is showing teachers how using comic books can help them teach reading and writing. Reading comics encourages "creative and critical thinking," Bitz says. "It touches on the things we're trying to achieve in language arts, but in a unique way."

Sherri Pittard, a teacher in Cleveland, Ohio, says the Comic Book Project has inspired her students. One struggling writer found his voice and created a prizewinning comic two years in a row.

Pittard also points to how much kids enjoy the work. "They don't realize they're learning," she says. "It's a little trick."

Claire Dreis, a fifth grader in Pittard's class, doesn't mind being fooled. "Drawing, coloring, making up stories it's just fun," she says.
—Kathryn Satterfield; TimeForKids.com

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Book Reporter
April 11, 2008

The star power of New Yorker arts editor Françoise Mouly and her husband, Pulitzer Prize winner Art Spiegelman, may have given the new TOON Books line its first blast of attention. But it's the books themselves that are stealing the spotlight, and deservedly so. The first three releases from the imprint, all of which have had to go back to press pre-publication to fulfill orders, are cleverly crafted and beautifully illustrated works that show great promise for the publisher.

BENNY AND PENNY IN JUST PRETEND manages to capture the magic and frustration of a brother and sister playing together, fighting and making up, all without talking down to its intended audience. Geoffrey Hayes, the popular illustrator behind Margaret Wise Brown's WHEN THE WIND BLEW and the creator of the series of books starring Otto and Uncle Tooth, has a knack for knowing always how to say just enough to tell his story, letting the reader absorb the surprisingly intricate art to gain the full effect.

Not surprisingly, the other writers and illustrators who have joined the TOON Books stable also have long and impressive histories in the genre. Author Jay Lynch was a pivotal figure in the underground comics scene of the '60s. Frank Cammuso has been nominated for an Eisner Award, one of the top honors in the graphic novel field. Agnès Rosenstiehl is a superstar in the children's book field in France.

The creators have a joy and respect for the material that translates onto the page. The result is something fresh and fun. The protagonist of SILLY LILLY AND THE FOUR SEASONS dances through a full year with so much enthusiasm that it's infectious. OTTO'S ORANGE DAY, the longest and most complex story of the three, shows that getting what you want is not always all it's cracked up to be, so you'd better be careful what you wish for. But the lesson learned here --- as with BENNY AND PENNY IN JUST PRETEND --- is never condescending.

TOON books build on a solid tradition of comics storytelling in this country. They have a hint of the subversive attitude that fueled comics from the turn of the 20th century up to their high point in the '50s, when single issues regularly sold a million or more copies. Since then, comics have had their ups and downs, both in terms of sales and cultural respect. TOON books show that the format is ready to return to its glory days, and a new generation of comics readers weaned on these lovely books will be ready and waiting.
—John Hogan; Bookreporter.com

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Book Reporter: Interview with Françoise Mouly
April 11, 2008

New Yorker art editor Françoise Mouly and her husband, acclaimed cartoonist Art Spiegelman, recently launched TOON Books, a new line of comics designed for children ages four and up. Its inaugural titles, now available in stores, are BENNY AND PENNY IN JUST PRETEND, SILLY LILLY AND THE FOUR SEASONS and OTTO'S ORANGE DAY. In this interview with Contributing Editor John Hogan, Mouly describes how her son, a reluctant reader, inspired the idea for this line and explains the benefits of these comics over conventional picture books. She also discusses how the books will be incorporated into school reading programs, shares some of the feedback they've received from teachers and librarians, and muses on the constantly changing attitudes towards comics.

Where did the idea for the TOON line come from?
The TOON Books are the books I wish we had had when our kids were in first grade. Until that moment, my husband and I had both shared wonderful moments reading with our kids, but when the teacher started assigning "easy readers" for us to spend evenings with, the joy went out of reading for both the kids and us. It was then I felt I discovered some sort of magic bullet that could cure all the ills in the world: comic books! Fortunately, I had a lot of French comics at my disposal (I read in French with my children), and that really got us through the nightly readings, especially with our son, for whom it took much longer before the little "I CAN READ" light bulb went on. For months and months, we cuddled up with comics: there was something for him to look at and he loved them. My husband sacrificed a valuable collection of old comics to fatherhood. When I realized how few good kids' comics were being published in the U.S. anymore, I decided that it was where I had to turn my attention.

Why did you choose to start this line now?
It took me 10 years to get here. Once I realized that getting good comics for kids was just as important as advocating for comics as art or literature had been decades before, the first step was to edit --- together with Art --- broadly aimed anthologies of comics for children of all ages, the Little Lit books, with contributions by the best cartoonists and children's book authors we knew. Then five years ago, I started focusing more narrowly on comics for early readers --- the books that became the TOON Books --- but I couldn't convince mainstream publishers to publish in a format that didn't already exist. Finally last year, I decided to return to my roots and publish the books myself.

What are the characteristics that define TOON Books?
To restore interest in the publishing of good comics for children is a vast endeavor, so it was important to keep what we wanted to accomplish with the TOON Books very focused: the goal was to develop a collection of high-quality comics specifically aimed at beginning readers. I worked very closely with artists on one hand and educators on the other to make sure the stories and the vocabulary were just right for children who are learning to read on their own.

How do you envision these books being different from illustrated children's books?
Of course both comics and picture books rely mightily on the art, but that's about all they have in common. When doing books for early readers, I think comics have a very distinct advantage, which is that the reader can follow the narrative thread from the visual flow. All the conventions of comics --- the dialogue in speech balloons, the passage of time made manifest, the facial expressions and gestures, the varying size of the panels and of the lettering --- contribute to propel the reader along.

What kinds of stories are you hoping to tell?
That is the first and most important step: to work with artists who have great stories to tell, stories that will enchant young readers. Fortunately, first from my work with RAW and then from my work as the Art Editor of The New Yorker, I'm in touch with most of the best narrative visual storytellers working nowadays, so it was a matter of choosing the artists interested in this project and willing to put themselves through the difficult discipline of working for a young audience.

The books are beautifully printed. How did you determine what the look and feel of the physical products were going to be?
I had my own ideas of what the design of the books should be, and have always known how important the feel of a book as an object is in making you fall in love with it. I wanted books that a child would perceive as a treasured gift and that would make him or her want to go back to it over and over again. I was very fortunate to get the help of a terrific designer, Jonathan Bennett, who is also a cartoonist himself. Jon immediately embraced the central idea, which was to make the books feel like instant classics. The design evokes classic children books of the '40s and '50s or even Little Golden Books with their spine designs, but is also eminently modern. We all agreed it was important to produce beautiful book objects, because well-produced, treasured children's books were the point of entry for all of us and for most book lovers we know.

What makes comics a good forum to use to teach kids to read?
As Art puts it, comics are a "gateway drug" to literacy. They are a perfect point of entry to make kids enjoy reading, because reading a well-told comics story is intensely pleasurable. Visual literacy is far more intuitive for young children than word literacy. When a visual narrative is clearly told, the child will get a big part of the story through the pictures. In a conventional easy reader, to make any story accessible to an emerging reader is a high wire act: if the words are too easy, the child will get bored, but if they are too hard, he or she might get discouraged. Educators say the ideal match is when a child is comfortable with 85% of the words, but can work out or guess the remaining 15%. This is where comics have such a big edge over conventional books whose story is told in meager paragraphs of simplified words. When comics are done well, the author can tell a very rich story using the words, the pictures and all the other narrative conventions of comics in what Barbara Tversky, a psychology professor at Stanford University, calls a multi-modal mode of communication.

Have you gotten any pushback from teachers or librarians who didn't want to accept comics?
Yes, there's a lot of resistance to the idea of comics for young children. It's not that long ago that teachers and parents ripped comic books out of children's hands and threw them in the trash, when not on bonfires. Many teachers or librarians still think that comics can only be the "comic book version," meaning the dumbed-down version of "real" books. This is similar to someone dismissing Abstract Art by saying that a child of three could have painted that. Such a critic may not have encountered a Pollock, a De Kooning or a Rauschenberg. But, fortunately, a lot of the a-priori prejudices against comics have tended to evaporate once the would-be detractor sees our books. At a recent convention, a librarian who had stopped by at our distributor's --- Diamond Book Distributors --- booth, picked up a TOON Book and exclaimed: "Oh! I didn't know you also had real books!"

Do you expect more, or do you feel attitudes are changing?
Both are in the offing I think. On one hand, many educators feel threatened by a medium that they are not familiar with and that can seem unpenetrable to them. And frankly, it's also true that it's a vastly expanded universe now, and that there are many comics or graphic novels that are absolutely NOT appropriate for children. So, it does scare the uninitiated. On the other hand, the landscape has entirely changed from the days when we did RAW and certainly since MAUS was first published, over 20 years ago. Comics --- or, as they are now dubbed, "graphic novels" --- have become respectable: they are shown in museums, taught in universities, eligible for literary prizes and stocked in most bookstores. Until very recently, the only area of comics that wasn't thriving was comics for children. Let's hope that with the TOON Books, we are now only seconds ahead of our times.

What positive responses have you gotten?
Almost all the librarians and teachers we have been in touch with have been hugely supportive. As far as they are concerned, the TOON Books fill a very pressing need in children's book publishing. While there are great picture books to read to young children, and rich literature for children eight or nine and up who are fluent readers, there are actually very few good books for the child at the stage he or she is discovering reading. Many of the adults who are in contact with kids every day, especially librarians and teachers, are eager to get them comics because they know it is something that the kids love. They are confident enough to believe that if the kids are enjoying reading, they'll become lifelong readers. There are few studies on reading comics and literacy, but the few that exist show a correlation between highly literate readers and readers of comics. So the small cohort of enlightened librarians and teachers out there is definitely opening new worlds of possibilities.

You're working with several people who have had a long history in the industry, yet the books' contents are new and fresh. How have you chosen the writers and artists you're working with?
Good stories; artists willing to go through the process.

What are your goals for the Toon Books line?
We are hoping it will contribute to many more good comics for kids being published.

How are these books going to be used in schools?
We are absolutely thrilled about the enthusiastic and immediate response we have gotten from so many educators. They are quite a few individual teachers taking the initiative and bringing our books and other comics in the classroom. School Library Journal, admittedly the most influential publication for school libraries, recently had a cover article about kids' comics where they featured our books. The TOON Books have also been accepted in Renaissance Learning's Accelerated Reader program, which is used in over 60% of schools. And the Maryland State Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Nancy M. Grasmick, has adopted the TOON Books in her pioneering Comics in the Classroom initiative for grades K-2. Selected Maryland teachers will read our books with their class and contribute students' comments as well as their own suggested lesson plans, the best of which we will post on our website, www.TOON-Books.com.
—John Hogan; Bookreporter.com

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Newsarama: In Praise of Françoise Mouly
April 28, 2008

Jeet Heer has a lovely essay explaining why the New Yorker art director, Raw co-founder, Toon Books publisher and, yes, wife of Art Spiegelman doesn't get half the credit she deserves.

To understand what Mouly brought to comics, compare Arcade (a magazine Spiegelman edited with Bill Griffith from 1975 to 1976) and Raw (edited by Spiegelman and Mouly from 1980 to 1991). Arcade is slightly better designed than a typical underground, but not by much. It's magazine size and had white paper. The main editorial task of Arcade was to round up the best cartoonists and get them to focus on coherent stories, rather than engage in their penchant for dope-inspired free associations.

Raw was an entirely different animal from Arcade: Oversize and with lots of extras thrown in (torn covers, fake bubblegum cards, inserts of the early chapters of Maus). In effect, Raw brought the issue of production values to the fore. This is also the case with the books she's edited. Mouly brought to comics some of the aesthetics of the arts and crafts wing of small press publishing (a movement that flourished in the 1970's when Mouly was forming her aesthetics). These days, it's normal for cartoonists to expend an enormous among of energy making sure that their book design matches their content (see any recent book by Chris Ware, Seth or Ivan Brunetti). This simply wasn't true before Mouly came into the picture.
—Chris Mautner; Newsarama.com

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Horn Book: Interview with Françoise Mouly
April 2008

Five questions for Françoise Mouly April 2008 Françoise Mouly, co-founder (with Art Spiegelman) of RAW magazine and art editor of The New Yorker since 1993, has a new venture. TOON Books debuts this spring with three books: Benny and Penny in Just Pretend by Geoffrey Hayes, Silly Lilly and the Four Seasons by Agnès Rosenstiehl, and Otto’s Orange Day by Frank Cammuso and Jay Lynch. But are they picture books? Comic books? Easy readers? Françoise explains below.

1. What’s the difference between TOON books and a) regular comic books and b) regular easy-to-read books?
The artistic and literary qualities that we hope are at the core of the TOON Books are often lacking in standard easy-to-read books, which tend to be made with good intentions but little creative impulse. How is a child going to learn to read if she is presented with books that offer none of the pleasures of reading?
I’m not sure exactly what a “regular” comic book is, but, since the phrase can seem pejorative to the uninitiated, I’d point out that TOON Books are more durably bound in the hope of being re-read often. They came from the realization that — as my husband, Art Spiegelman, puts it — comics are a gateway drug to literacy.

2. What’s the difference between a comic book and a picture book?
Both have pictures, but the similarities end there. Comic books offer a visual narrative, with words as only one of the elements intertwined with the pictures. The visual narrative in a comic book helps kids crack the code of literacy, teaching them how to read from left to right, from top to bottom. Speech balloons facilitate a child’s understanding of written dialogue as a transcription of spoken language. In a sense, comics are similar to face-to-face interaction. Comics blend words, images, and facial expressions with panel-to-panel progression, sound effects, and even shifts in type size to engage readers and propel the story. Many of the issues that emerging readers have traditionally struggled with are instantly clarified by comics’ simple and inviting format.

3. Do you think children need to learn how to read a comic book?
A child entering school encounters an enormous shift in how to learn. Up to that point, he has been able to grasp and make sense of the world in an intuitive way, but when he is learning to read, he has to proceed in a non-intuitive, narrower, more linear fashion, in a way that doesn’t reward trial and error. A five- or six-year-old child is, visually, very literate. No parent or teacher has ever had to teach him or her how to find Waldo (which is a blessing!). While we are all decrying the loss of reading ability, maybe we should also be celebrating the advent of a new kind of visual literacy, where our kids are way ahead of us in computer skills and video games, learning new skills every day at an amazing pace. Yet for me, there’s one essential difference between a child downloading a video from YouTube and a child reading a book: when a child reads a book, he has control over the medium. He gets to turn the pages, reread parts that he likes, and he is making the story happen in his head. He experiences the firsthand pleasures of reading. I took our books to schools and read them with first and second graders. The kids recognized the visual style as akin to Saturday morning animations and immediately felt that the books were for them. Young boys were especially thrilled, because they perceive comics as a “big boy” medium.

4. Do you worry that the child-centered nature of comics is being lost, that they are one more over-commodified thing targeted at young consumers?
Roger, you are teasing me here. You know I have spent my whole adult life arguing that comics as a medium can produce works of art and literature just like any other medium. But, all kidding aside, it seems true that, as the medium grew up, kids got left behind. So that’s precisely why, after saying for decades: “Comics, they are not just for kids anymore,” Art and I are now saying, “Comics, they are not just for adults anymore.”

5. What do you hope TOON books will do?
TOON books should convince any skeptics left in the house that comics can open a child’s eyes to reading’s wonders. My husband and I both developed our love of literature through comics. So did our kids. Now we want to share that pleasure with a new generation.
—Hbook.com

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PRINT Magazine
Spring 2008

“I like to make something with my own hands,” explains Françoise Mouly. The art director for The New Yorker stands at a light table in her home studio in downtown New York City, fingers covered in glue. She’s pasting in text changes for TOON Books, a new series of hardbound comics for beginning readers that she and her husband, Art Spiegelman, are publishing under their RAW Junior imprint. Six titles are due out this spring and fall. [Update: Due to high demand, Raw Junior will release all three comics simultaneously on April 7.] Contributors so far include Geoffrey Hayes, Frank Cammuso, Jay Lynch, Eleanor Davis, Spiegelman, and French picture-book star Agnès Rosenstiehl, whose Silly Lilly Mouly adapted into comic-book form for the project.

Mouly was inspired to start the series when she and Spiegelman saw the ways their daughter and son learned to read (before they started raiding Spiegelman’s mint comic collection). TOON books aren’t just charming—they contain building blocks for both verbal and visual literacy. Mouly (who also happens to have studied neuroscience herself) thinks both are vital, despite the dispiritingly prevalent view that “the whole point of being literate is to leave the pictures behind.” She worked with educators to ensure that the books are pedagogically sound, then road-tested them in classrooms. The state of Maryland—which recently launched a program to use comics in schools—will use the TOONs as textbooks.

In Mouly’s vision, bookstore chains will have a comics section just for children, and parents will be able to grab a TOON book from a display table at Costco. “Kids love books,” she says. “They genuinely do.”
—Emily Gordon; PrintMag.com

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Miami Herald
March 22, 2008

Comics are infiltrating the schoolhouse like never before because they are reaching that most elusive of creatures -- the reluctant reader. Faced with a generation raised in a visual environment dominated by television, the Internet and electronic games, teachers and librarians have found comics will lure readers -- especially boys -- who have a limited interest in books.

It was the how-to-get-a-boy-to-read conundrum that propelled Francoise Mouly, co-editor of Raw magazine and the New Yorker art editor, into producing comic books for young readers herself. Mouly has two children with husband Art Spiegelman, the author of Maus, a Holocaust memoir that is considered one of the granddaddies of the graphic novel format, and which won a 1992 Pulitzer Prize. Her daughter, Nadje, learned to read after a few weeks of concentrated effort. Despite being raised in the same environment -- ''surrounded by books, with parents who read to them,'' her son, Dash, now 16, struggled.

''I was running out of books I could use with him,'' Mouly said, so she turned to Spiegelman's vast collection of comics -- Krazy Kat, Little Nemo, Batman. That worked.

''My husband sacrificed his comics to fatherhood, but it was a good cause, and it allowed Dash to find a path to success,'' Mouly said. ``It made us both realize how much of a magic bullet comics could be. Children will learn if there's something in it for them and if it's pleasurable.''

The personal experiment made Mouly realize how divorced comics had become from childhood. ``Dash had friends who came to the house and had never seen comics before.''

In response, she and Spiegelman produced three comics anthologies -- the Little Lit series -- aimed specifically at readers age 8 to 12. Next month, she's launching Toon Books, which takes the comic book offensive to its youngest audience ever: beginning readers. The new line debuts in April with three titles -- Benny and Penny by Geoffrey Hayes, Silly Lilly by Agnès Rosenstiehl, and Otto's Orange Day by Frank Cammuso and Jay Lynch. The books have already been adopted by Renaissance Learning's ''Accelerated Reader'' program, used in 60 percent of American classrooms.
—Sue Corbett via MomsMiami.com

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More Praise for TOON Books

“Françoise Mouly, New Yorker art editor and wife of acclaimed cartoonist Art Spiegelman, is at it again. After transforming American comics with the seminal 1980s comics anthology RAW, Mouly is now out to teach kids to read by using comics.”
—Publishers Weekly

“Lovingly produced and winsomely written.”
—Time Out New York Kids

“Here is a recipe for an appetizing collection of books that will be the perfect nutrition for your child’s hungry little mind.”
—Sandbox World

“TOON Books are really a new generation of books for a new generation of young, emerging readers who are growing up in a very visual environment. These graphic novels are more than just stories translated into a comic format. They are organic, with simple dialogue and engaging illustrations created by some of the best writers and artists in the business…[TOON Books] help young readers as they begin the process of learning to navigate the page and decipher text.”
—Michele Gorman, author of Getting Graphic!

“IT’S ABOUT TIME! The comic format is so wonderful for early readers as the pictures support the text directly...This is the first time I’ve seen someone really trumpet the format for young readers.”
—Tracy Edmunds; All Ages Reads

“These books provide fun reading for younger children while also introducing them to the graphic novel format. They’re great for any library collection, and especially fine for school libraries.”
—Katherine Kan, MLS Librarian/Consultant

“Gather together some of the great graphic novelists of this new millennium and you get these easy reads in a fun, colorful format.”
—Elizabeth Bird; Donnell Central Children’s Room/NYPL

“What a breakthrough! Developing new readers through comics: only Françoise Mouly and Art Spiegelman could bring us something so ingenious. Some of us older readers will want to collect them for ourselves, too.”
—Mitchell Kaplan; Books and Books

“TOON Books are very confident in their comics format; reading them feels new yet also brings with it a notion of ‘Well, of course this is what chapter books for kids in comics form would look like.’”
—Tom Spurgeon; The Comics Reporter

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