Summer is here and with summer comes something known as the “summer slide”. This is the tendency for students to lose some of the achievement gains they made during the previous school year. One of the ways to combat this phenomenon is to actively participate in the summer reading program that we have here at the library which infuses fun into reading. Another tactic to motivate young readers is to check out a few books from our collection of graphic novels.
Graphic novels are exploding in popularity with good reason. These are fun books that captivate even the most reluctant reader with their fabulous stories, colorful characters and wacky humor. Not only are these books fun for your child to read, but they assist with the raising of readers. These are engaging books which lead young readers into a realm where they experience the sound of language, identify with different characters, and learn about story arc and resolution while completely loving the journey into the exotic worlds they find within the pages. They will also find themselves expanding their visual literacy skills, reinforcing and expanding vocabulary, creating reading confidence and reading without prompting. Remember that anything that we do for pleasure is most likely something we will want to repeat over and over in the future. So come and take out some of our fabulous graphic novels and use them to have fun this summer while boosting your child’s reading skills.
Luke on the Loose by Harry Bliss
While Luke observes the pigeons in Central Park and Dad is lost in “boring Daddy talk”, but before you know it Luke flies the coop and is on the loose . He’s free as a bird and takes us on his hilarious solo flight through New York City while his dad tries to find him. Grades K-2
Otto’s orange day by Frank Cammuso
Otto’s very favorite color is orange! When he meets a magical genie, he knows just what to wish for…the whole world turned into orange. At first, this new, bright world is a lot of fun, but Otto the cat soon realizes that his favorite color isn’t the best color for everything. Grades K-2
Hilo Book 1: The Boy Who Crashed to Earth by Judd Winick
D.J. and his friend Gina are totally normal kids when a mysterious boy came crashing down from the sky and throws everything into chaos. Hilo doesn’t know where he came from, or what he’s doing on Earth. Suddenly, all three kids are involved in danger and spending their afternoons doing things like fighting robots. This is a fun book with big laughs! Grades 3-5
Dragon Girl: The Secret Valley by Jeff Weigel
Eleven year old Alanna, , stumbles upon a cave full of dragon eggs. When the eggs hatch and still the mother does not come back she decides to help the babies survive in a time that dragons are being hunted and destroyed. She makes herself a dragon suit and begins her adventures as a dragon. We learn along with Alanna the difficulty of raising baby dragons a dealing with their large appetites and fire burps. Finally, when mama dragon comes to claim the babies we follow Alanna’s adventures on the journey to Dragon Rock. Grades 3-5
Prime Baby by Gene Luen Yang
What is she… a little sister or an alien? This humorous book is about older brother Thaddeus who is not fond at all of his baby sister. So, naturally, he determines that she must be an alien. While not quite true, he does discover that there is something odd about his baby sister. Grades 6-8
Smile by Raina Telgemeier
Smile is funny, sad, touching and very moving. It is the author’s memoir about adolescence and wanting to fit in like everyone else and be normal. Unfortunately for her, after a Girl Scout meeting, she trips and falls, thus injuring her two front teeth. This is the starting point for a lovely story which details the difficult teenage high and lows experienced by Raina as she suffers through Middle School and High School. Grades 6-8
Interested in reading more about graphic novels? Check out the websites below.
A Guide to Using Graphic Novels with Children and Teens http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/lesson-plan/guide-using-graphic-novels-children-and-teens
The Association for Library Services to Children Graphic Novel Reading Lists- 2016 Update http://www.ala.org/alsc/graphicnovels2016
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