Level 1 (Grades K-1)
Level 2 (Grades 1 -2)
Level 3 (Grades 2-3)
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 Françoise 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.
Eleanor Davis is also the creator of a new graphic novel series for slightly older readers, Secret Science Alliance, to be reviewed here in the very neat future!
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 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
6 comments:
These sound great! I've got a couple of them on reserve. My son keeps wanting to grab the manga when we're at the library, so I'm really hoping they'll be a hit.
Manga and graphic novels are a very, very new thing for me, but, as a lover of illustrations, they are a perfect fit! I feel a little bit like I'm cheating when I read them, but I can definitely see how they would be great for emerging readers.
Thank you so much for such a great post. I went out and bought one at the local bookstore (Little Mouse) but my daughter ended up loving the Silly Lilly book we found at the local library.
I'm curious about one thing, though:
Why does it appear that the Reading Level and Lexile Level of some of the 1st grade and 2nd grade books are lower than those of the kindergarten level books? Seems odd.
Anyway, thanks for turning us onto these. I read Mo and Jo to my daughter tonight and my wife read her Otto. Good stuff and can't wait for more!
So glad the TOON books are a hit in your home! The books are gorgeous - great art work and production values - and the stories are great. You have to read STINKY by Eleanor Davis next! It's my favorite - along with the BENNY & PENNY stories.
I noticed the discrepancy in the Lexile numbers as well. I have studied the methods for ranking with both Lexile and Accelerated Reader and there are still so many grey areas for me as to how they determine things. Fortunately, I'm not a professional educator and don't have to worry about the finer points...
I love to read to my daughter and love these books. My biggest question is whether to read these books (like Stinky and fun easy reader books like them) to her, or wait until she is a good enough reader to read them on her own. I break down and just read to her whatever I have. She's reading "Biscuit and Mittens" level books now, so she's really just barely starting to read. Sometimes I ask her to read spot words here and there, like when I read Mo and Jo, I would pause on some of the easier words and have her read those words. It works really well, until I do it too much and she says, "Dad, just READ" :-)
That is such a tough question - especially when a child is on the cusp of reading independently. This is how (after 3 kids, one of whom is almost at this point) I look at it: I want to make sure that reading a book is the most enjoyable experience possible, and the quality of the book has so much to do with that. The TOON books are all excellent and I can easily imagine a new reader delighting over discovering STINKY on her or his own.
However, if you think you can read it once or twice to your daughter now, put it away for a few months and have her tackle it on her own with glee even though she has heard it before, I would do that. It's just so hard to tell. Also, at this stage, sometimes reading is really about the mechanics and getting the skills down and not about the story or illustrations. But, for some kids, that is work that they don't want to do and in that instance you really need an awesome book to hook them and entice them to do the work.
Just from what you have said about your appreciation of books, I am sure that will be passed on to your children and you don't have to worry so much about dry, dull beginning to read books flipping the "love of reading" switch in the wrong direction.
Hope that helps...
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