Our TOON Books Mission
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By Françoise Mouly
"Comics are a gateway drug to literacy."
—Art Spiegelman, Pulitzer-Prize winning author of Maus, A Survivor's Tale 
We are thrilled to present our collection of TOON Books. TOON Books represent a whole new approach to books for beginning readers—a rethinking as radical as the first time Theodor Geisel put a hat on a cat.
TOON Books are the first high-quality comics designed for children ages three and up. Each book in the collection is just right for reading to the youngest child. Perhaps more remarkably, this is the first collection ever designed to offer early 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. Our books feature original stories and characters created by veteran children’s book authors, renowned cartoonists and new talents, all applying their extraordinary skills to fascinate young children with tales that will welcome them to the magic of reading. As many teachers, librarians, booksellers and parents will attest, children LOVE comics! In the heyday of the form, back in the 30s, 40s and 50s, they loved them so much it scared grown-ups. In 1954, the lurid excesses of some crime and horror comics led to Senate hearings investigating the connection between comics and juvenile delinquency and even to organized comic book burnings. The baby almost got thrown out with the bathwater and comic books were virtually left for dead. What had once been a vital mass medium with many genres for many age groups was reduced mostly to super-hero adventures for an aging and diminishing group of fans.
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Spot drawings by Barry Blitt
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A generation of avant-garde cartoonists that grew up loving comics were left free to experiment with the form, as underground comix in the 60s, as small-press art-comics in the 70s and 80s, and most recently, as Graphic Novels. It became obvious that the medium was capable of more than most readers had ever suspected. Our groundbreaking graphics magazine of the 80s, RAW, was at the forefront of the change, demonstrating that “comics aren’t just for kids anymore!” The magazine introduced Art’s acclaimed Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel, Maus, as well as work by many of today’s most heralded comics artists. RAW is widely acknowledged as having spear-headed the new enthusiasm that brought comics and graphic novels into museums, universities, bookstores, and libraries. Oddly, as the medium grew up, kids got left behind.
We applied our skills to filling that gap with our widely-praised Little Lit anthologies—comics for all ages by some of children’s books' and comics' most noted luminaries. Now we’ve honed those skills and focused them further for this new imprint. Comics have always had a unique ability to draw young readers into a story through the drawings. Visual narrative helps kids crack the code that allows literacy to flourish, 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. Many of the issues that emerging readers have traditionally struggled with are instantly clarified by comics' simple and inviting format. As a matter of fact, the TOON Books have been eagerly adopted by teachers and librarians and are widely used in the classrooms of Maryland, New York, Florida and many other states. Watching kids devour our TOON books should convince any skeptics left in the house how entertaining comics can be as they open a child’s eyes up to a book’s pleasures. We both learned our love of reading through comics. So did our kids. Now we want to share that pleasure with a new generation as it enters an increasingly visual culture. TOON Books let readers everywhere know: “COMICS—They’re not just for grown-ups anymore! They’re not even just for Young Adults. Comics are once again for KIDS, even for the youngest… and they’re better than ever!” |
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And now! |
