Zig and Wikki in The Cow By Nadja Spiegelman and Trade Loeffler Toon Books “When alien pals Zig and Wikki lose their spaceship on Earth, their friendship is definitely in trouble. In order to get home, they must travel through a farm and into a cow, picking up fun facts about ecology (and picking fights) along [...]
Continue reading...Monday, April 16, 2012
Chick & Chickie Play All Day By Claude Ponti Toon Books We’ve reviewed a fair number of these gorgeous Toon Books graphic novels for younger readers here at the FPI Blog. They’re magnificent little things, well thought out, beautiful artwork, perfect stories for the youngest of readers, and a great introduction to comics. This is one [...]
Continue reading...Monday, April 2, 2012
The Shark King By R. Kikou Johnson Toon Books Francoise Mouly’s Toon Books have only been in existence a few yars but they’ve really set a high standard for producing quite magnificent comics for children. We have a set in the school library and they’re invaluable, a wonderful source of fun and a great way [...]
Continue reading...Tuesday, March 27, 2012
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Toon Books regularly put out some really lovely books for younger readers, and they’ve proved a real hit in the school graphic novel library. Coming in April is a truly gorgeous looking book by R. Kikou Johnson – The Shark King. You may know Johnson’s previous work Night Fisher from Fantagraphics, but this is his first work [...]
Continue reading...Sunday, December 18, 2011
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We’re extremely lucky at the school I work in to have good contacts with a number of extremely generous comic and book publishers. One of these is the US company Toon Books, part of Candlewick Press, who regularly send us copies of their wonderful early reader graphic novels. I’ve reviewed these in the past, and [...]
Continue reading...Friday, November 18, 2011
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Nina in “That Makes Me Mad!” By Hilary Knight, based on a text by Steven Kroll Toon Books The latest Toon Books, those beautiful little hardbacks designed for much younger readers (and beloved in the school library I must add), is a little bit of a classic…. in both senses of the word. First of [...]
Continue reading...Thursday, October 20, 2011
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Benjamin Bear in Fuzzy Thinking By Philippe Coudray Toon Books Oooh, this is very interesting. It’s a Toon Book, full of simple language, designed for US Grades 1-2 (6 and 7-year olds), short sentences, lots of repetition, a simple set of characters, and just a few uncomplicated panels per page. And it’s as lovely as [...]
Continue reading...Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Here at the FPI blog we’re very keen on Toon Books; the graphic novel series designed for the youngest of readers. But I’m definitely not the target readership, no matter how much I try to think younger. And even when I get my 11 year-old Molly to review them I still feel she’s slightly too [...]
Continue reading...Saturday, May 28, 2011
Patrick in A Teddy Bears Picnic And Other Stories By Geoffrey Hayes Toon Books There was a time, not so long ago, that the old credo of “comics aren’t just for kids anymore” suddenly seemed to be closer to “comics aren’t for kids at all anymore“. Thankfully, over the last few years this has been [...]
Continue reading...Wednesday, May 5, 2010
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Benny And Penny in The Toy Breaker by Geoffrey Hayes Toon Books The latest Toon Books release sees another in Geoffrey Hayes’ award-winning Benny And Penny series, the gentlest of adventures of two little mice. The last Benny And Penny book – The Big No-No! won the prestigious 2009 American Library Association’s Theodor Seuss Geisel [...]
Continue reading...Friday, April 2, 2010
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Zig And Wikki – Something Ate My Homework by Nadja Spiegelman and Trade Loeffler Toon Books “I wanted to write a story that would have both hugs and bugs— a friendship and gross facts about flies” Nadja Spiegelman in School Library Journal. Poor Zig – he’s late with his homework and needs to find a [...]
Continue reading...Saturday, January 23, 2010
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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 [...]
Continue reading...Sunday, 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 [...]
Continue reading...Saturday, October 3, 2009
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Isn’t that the cutest thing? Little Mouse by Jeff Smith was the latest in the first graphic novel series from Toon Books. We thought it was lovely. But if just the book isn’t enough Toon Books are now offering the book, signed by Jeff Smith and this gorgeous 9.5″ tall plush Little Mouse of your [...]
Continue reading...Tuesday, September 22, 2009
The Toon Treasury Of Classic Children’s Comics Selected & Edited by Art Spiegelman & Francoise Mouly Abrams ComicArts The Toon Treasury is a huge (really huge – 350+ pages) hardcover of seemingly every wonderful comic for children from the 30s to the 60s, all lovingly compiled by Francoise Mouly and Art Spiegelman. Okay, not every [...]
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Tuesday, April 24, 2012
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