Recently, I’ve been looking at the circulation numbers of my children’s graphic novel collection.  I do this periodically to make sure I’m buying popular material, that new trends haven’t popped up, that none of my bestsellers have “gone missing,” etc.  After crunching all the numbers, it became very clear that there is a strong demand for manga aimed at the upper elementary and middle school reader.  This is not the same thing as manga for kids.  It means manga for middle schoolers.  I’m repeating this because in my travels around different popular culture conventions, there seems to be a misperception that kids and middle schoolers have the same interests.  They don’t, especially when it comes to girls.
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Tags: Opinion by Eva Volin
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I woke up yesterday morning and saw this post on the Newsarama blog, about Oprah Winfrey including Sarah Varon’s Robot Dreams in her recommended reading list for six-to-nine-year-olds, and I immediately started wondering what the other bloggers on this site thought of that. So I asked. The result was a wide-ranging conversation about what age group Robot Dreams is best suited for, whether you can ever have a truly all-ages title, and how kids find books in libraries. Enjoy!

Robin Brenner: I read Robot Dreams last year when considering it for the Great Graphic Novels for Teens list — and you’ll note that it did make it on to that list, and was a favorite of many members of the committee. Part of my debate about the book was whether it skewed too young, and in the end I felt it was definitely sophisticated enough to appeal to a range of teens, even if it was also officially appropriate for kids.

Part of my hesitation with promoting it for kids, though, is simply that no one ever really makes the distinction between for kids and all ages (if such a mythical designation as all ages really exists as much as publishers want it to.) Robot Dreams certainly has nothing objectionable in it for kids to read about, and it has a lot of themes that will resonate with kids, from making new friends to feeling regret to making bad decisions. There’s also the art style, which is charming and very appealing, which leads one to guess that it is aimed at kids. However, none of that makes it the best choice for kids age 6-9.

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Tags: Opinion by Brigid Alverson
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The Eisner Awards have been announced, and amid all of the commentary and snarky asides on its way (and is, admittedly, a great part of the fun of going through the nominees), I wanted to highlight how fantastic I think it is that the Eisners decided to break the category recognizing comics for younger readers, Best Title for a Younger Audience, into two separate categories: Best Publication for Kids and Best Publication for Teens. As anyone who works with kids or teens knows, they are a diverse and ravenous bunch when it comes to comics and graphic novels. However, no “young reader” is reading the same thing at 6 as they are reading at 16 (unless perhaps it’s Calvin and Hobbes.) The idea of trying to figure out a shortlist for every Eisner category is demanding enough, but the task of picking five or six titles to represent all the comics, graphic novels, and strips aimed at folks under 18 is nigh impossible. [Read more →]

Tags: Opinion by Robin Brenner
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Word Balloons is a group blog about comics for kids. We will cover all ages from preschool through young adult, but we won’t lump all ages together; we’re smart enough to know that a three-year-old has different abilities and interests than a 13-year-old.

Our goal is to be the morning newspaper for anyone interested in kids’ comics: creators, editors, teachers, librarians, retailers, and most importantly, readers. We will present interviews, reviews, and opinions and link to the best of what other folks are writing. We expect to have frequent guest posts, and we invite our readers to send us a heads-up whenever they see something interesting about kids’ comics on the internet or even in print.

Also, we will cover all the comics kids read, as opposed to the comics grownups think they should read. That means we will cover works of great literary and artistic merit, but we won’t ignore the formulaic crap either. If it’s fun, it’s in.

So pour yourself some milk, grab the cookies, and join in the conversation!

Tags: Opinion by Brigid Alverson
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