Reading and Bookish Links

First an important message:

Long gone are the days that comic books were considered inferior reading materials, even harmful. Jennifer L. Holm, three time Newbery Honor recipient, writes for Brightly about the benefits of comics or graphic novels for beginning readers. Check out What Comic Books Teach Young Children at Brightly.

A companion to the previous link is Start 'Em Early: Comics for Young Kids with reviews of several comic books. One of the favorites around here is A Trip to the Bottom of the World With Mouse by Frank Viva. 

My review is here.

From a Mighty Girl, a quote from Carl Sagan: 

Finally, an article from the New York Times Mo Willems and the Art of the Children's Book. Mo Willems is the author and illustrator of the wildly popular Pigeon series, Elephant and Piggie books and the Knuffle Bunny books (which are wildly popular with a couple of my granddaughters). While Willems has written dozens of books for children, the exhibition at the New York Historical Society focuses on these three series. Reviews of some of his books can be found on this blog.

A Trip to the Bottom of the World With Mouse

One of the books recommended by Melissa Taylor in the previous post for 5 and 6 year olds is Frank Viva’s A Trip To The Bottom Of the World With Mouse. It has been sitting on my bookshelf for months, so it is about time to get around to it. Mouse and his explorer friend are on a ship headed to Antarctica. The seas are rough and Mouse would like to turn around and go back home, but the trip becomes worth it when they get to see penguins, whales and swim in the warm water of a submerged volcano. The book is based on a trip the author took to Antarctica (he is Mouse). You can read more about it and see some pictures of the trip here.

What makes this a terrific book for beginning readers is large, well-spaced type, few words on a page, repetition and pairing words with pictures. Not to mention, it is a good story.

The Sonoma County Library has a few copies.