Comics - Part One

There’s no doubt about it, comics and the Geisel Award go together like peanut butter and jelly! With honor titles like Sergio Ruzzier’s Fox and Chick: The Party and Other Stories, My Kite Is Stuck! And Other Stories by Salina Yoon, Emily Tetri’s Tiger vs Nightmare (just to name a few), and Laurie Keller’s Geisel winning We Are Not Growing!, there are a lot of comics for beginning readers to love. And yet, if your library is anything like mine, there’s a definite need for more comics for developing readers. They seem to fly off the shelves! So in today’s post I’m going to highlight a few beginning reader comics. Could one of them be the peanut butter to this year’s jelly? 

Book covers: Baloney and Friends by Greg Pizzoli, Chick and Brain: Egg or Eyeball? by Cecel Bell, Cookie & Broccoli: Ready for School by Bob McMahon

Baloney and Friends by Greg Pizzoli 

Given his Geisel track record -- Watermelon Seed (winner 2014), Good Night Owl (honor 2017), Book Hog (honor 2020) --, a new Pizzoli book always generates some Geisel buzz. In a combination of longer, multi-page stories and brief, single-page mini-comics, a pig named Baloney and his gaggle of animal friends support one another through swimming pool fun, magic show hilarity, and days when they’re feeling a bit blue. Color-coded speech bubbles match the color of each character, making it easy to follow the dialogue-driven stories. Although there’s occasional unfamiliar vocabulary and a word here and there printed in a decorative font, overall there’s much to appreciate in what promises to be the start of a new series. 

 

Chick and Brain: Egg or Eyeball? by Cece Bell 

Just last year Bell took home a Geisel honor for Chick and Brain: Smell My Foot. All the supporting elements from that honor title -- clever word repetition, a story arc that creates a wonderful page turning dynamic, and text printed in an easy to read font positioned in well-placed speech bubbles -- are once again present in the duo’s newest adventure. In four chapters of hilarious wordplay, Chick and Brain debate egg versus eyeball with an eleventh hour reveal that will have everyone giggling. Readers of the first book will be delighted to encounter Spot the dog, as well as a few new, completely original characters. While there are definitely nods to the first book, this title stands on its own quite well. 

Cookie & Broccoli: Ready for School! by Bob McMahon 

Starring a cast of talking foods with stick-like appendages and large expressive eyes, McMahon’s author-illustrator debut is jam-packed with jokes. From the first moment Cookie and Broccoli meet at school, it’s clear they are destined to become best friends whose opposite personalities complement one another. School day mischief and misunderstandings provide the backbone for this series starter. While the silly humor and friendly illustrations scream kid appeal, the sheer amount of text along with the many different decorative fonts used throughout the book may pose some barriers to a successful reading experience for new readers. 

 

As I close this post, I want to highlight the need for developing reader comics by BIPOC creators, as well as creators with/from other marginalized identities and communities. And we need those identities and cultures to be reflected in the books as well. Have you noticed something all of the titles mentioned in this post have in common? They all feature animals, plants, or other inanimate objects (with the exception of Brain, who is a walking, talking brain…), rather than human characters. I long for comics that provide windows, mirrors, and sliding glass doors to new readers. That’s not to say that any of the titles or creators we’ve mentioned in this post aren’t Geisel-worthy, rather, let’s take note of these gaps. Make your voice heard by asking publishers to actively seek, publish and promote diverse comics by diverse creators.