Name: Spreading the Feast Gathering
Start: 2025-07-11T00:00:00-05:00
End: 2025-07-12T23:59:59-05:00
Location: LaGrange, KY

Tagged: Graphic novels

This topic has 7 replies, 7 voices, and was last updated 15 years ago by morgrace.

Viewing 8 posts - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)

Author
Posts
May 17, 2010 at 12:02 am
CindyS
Participant
Timberdoodle seems to be really pushing graphic novels these days. Anyone have any experience with these? Something in me is warring against these things.
Thanks,
Cindy
May 17, 2010 at 1:02 am
RobinP
Participant
I noticed that… i don’t think I’ll be investing in them although I’ve never seen them. I can’t imagine they would meet my criteria for living books.
May 17, 2010 at 2:21 am
Rachel White
Participant
It’s ironic that you placed this topic under living books, since these ‘graphic novels’ are anything but. I’m not sure why they’ve gone in this direction, but it’s definitely a sorry solutoin to reading problems or developmental issues, IMO. Having a dd who struggled in that area, resorting to this type of ‘reading’ would not have encouraged her brain development. It’s akin to comic books and goes against everything I believe in as far as literature appreciation and what good lit does for the brain, through language, character, attention span, etc…what CM taught!
I hope this isn’t a sign of a sliver of the HS’ling community moving in that direction; bringing the dumbed down mentality that exists in the gov’t. school system and society as a whole, into the home. If it moves in that direction in the future, that’ll be depressing. Many schools allow comic books as “literature” in high school, as well as other choices made by the students themselves. It part of that “as long as they’re reading, it doesn’t matter what it is” mentality.
OK, I’ll get off my soapbox.
Rachel
May 17, 2010 at 4:00 am
Polly
Participant
Rachel,
I agree. I was really disappointed with their newest catalog. They’ve been a mainstay of solid homeschooling materials for many years. This change in their inventory really saddened me too.
May 17, 2010 at 11:04 am
CindyS
Participant
So glad it’s not just me! Haha, I agree, but Living Books was the only choice for categorizing a book question!
May 17, 2010 at 1:16 pm
missingtheshire
Member
I have to say I recycled their new catalog as I was really shocked that they had made these graphic novels available. It is so hard these days to keep things wholesome and of good standard, I had hoped the homeschool community would always take the high road, not so, I’m afraid. I would keep away from that type of reading, there is no value in it.
May 20, 2010 at 6:17 pm
zami
Participant
I’m not familiar with Timberdoodle, so I had to go look for them online.
I don’t think the graphic novels look *all* bad.
I think they would work well as a “common interest” item between children like mine (children of an admitted book snob!) and children who are into comics.
But, if he ever expresses a want for comics, I’d much rather buy my son “Black Beauty”, or any of those “Tin Tin Adventures”, than what’s available in most comic stores.
When they are re-writes of classics (like Black Beauty), I think they’d be fine if reserved for *after* the original has been read. That’s how we treat audio books around here too. Not that I have any beef with audio books, but they just get gobbled up so fast, I think a “one chapter a night” reading from me or their Dad serves them best the first time through.
Anyhow I just wanted to offer another perspective. 🙂
-Laura
May 21, 2010 at 1:52 am
morgrace
Participant
Hmm. Doesn’t make you wonder why good books would need to be put into comic book form in the first place? Is it just to make them palatable? I have a children’s Bible that was given to us that is basicly a hardbound comic book. I’ve never been able to make up my mind wether or not to bring it out. My initial reaction was to give it away (isn’t the Bible exciting enough without attempting to jazz it up?) – but then someone told me how much their kids loved that particular version.
I don’t know what to think about Tin-Tin. My brother loved them. I didn’t think they were that awful, but then he only had Tin Tin and no other comics. Guess I’ll be thinking on this one for awhile.