I’ve always loved this book’s message about making friends with unusual characters. Many of my students are immigrants, or the children of immigrants, and they hail from all different parts of the world–Russia, China, Burma, Israel, India, and Pakistan. Most of them are bi- or tri-lingual. While rehearsing the play, I watched them make insightful connections between the friendship Stinky and Nick ultimately share, and the friendships they have in their own lives, with other children from wildly different cultural backgrounds.

My cast included seven rats, three possums, two slugs (played by twin brothers in a tour de force of slowness), three birds, two narrators, a toad, a boy (Nick), and a monster (Stinky). My colleague, Erin Lynn Welsh, designed the set (with trees painted by our fifth graders!) and the masks, which the cast made out of simple paper plates. I played a tree in the background (can you find my hat?), whispering line prompts when necessary.

These are excellent and I am so happy to know about the books and all of the classroom resources on your website!  I plan to meet with the literacy coaches from Topeka Public School District later in August when they return to duty.  I will share these books and the website with them as I think this format will work very well with reluctant and/or struggling readers.

I am also sending your email/the link to your website to ERC Resource and Referral Center here in Topeka.  This is an organization that provides training to teachers in this region.  I know they will be very interested in the books as well as the resources/activities on your website.

I will also be introducing these books to the staff in our Early Childhood Intervention Program here at Family Service.  I particularly appreciate the conflicts between the characters that are portrayed in the Benny and Penny books … our staff will enjoy reading these with the younger children and talking about the situations.  I will introduce the upper level books to our staff in the Youth Intervention program … Mo and Jo: Fighting Together Forever and Otto’s Orange Day will be great for that group … older children who have trouble reading and also trouble resolving conflicts.

Selected as a Best Children’s Picture Books by Publishers Weekly when it was released, Silly Lilly in the Four Seasons by Agnès Rosenstiehl (recipient of the prestigious Grand Prize for Children’s Books of the Société des Gens de Lettres) was described as “perfect for new readers” by the School Library Journal. “Comic moments…draw us directly into Lilly’s emotional world, where attention is routinely paid to everything, from a lowly dandelion on up,” remarked the eminent critic Leonard S. Marcus in a starred review.

Unique features of the TOON Books iPhone/iPad app include:

• Lively narration that brings the story to life. Onscreen text and highlighted speech balloons help readers make associations between the words they hear and see. It is the closest experience to being read a book that any app can deliver. As with all TOON Books, repeated use builds reading fluency.


• The carefully chosen vocabulary is recommended by educators for young children; the app is designed specifically for young readers for ease of use, with easy-to-read large type and pages that can turn automatically or be swiped back-and-forth manually for a true feeling of turning the page.


• Narration is available in five languages – English, Spanish, French, Russian and Mandarin Chinese. The interactive options immerse young readers in the story, making this a great tool for both English Language Learners and very young English speakers learning a new language. There’s no better way to introduce a child to a new language than with the universal language of comics.

Silly Lilly is the American counterpart to Mimi Cracra, the star character of over 100 books and a television show in France. The TOON Books line recently expanded with hardcover bilingual French/English editions published in France by Casterman, the most recent of which is Silly Lilly in the Four Seasons (more information at TOON-books.com).

TOON Books’ Editorial Director Françoise Mouly (who is also Art Editor of The New Yorker) launched the new line of comics for young readers to overwhelming praise.Vetted by educators and librarians, the collection is a breakthrough in books for early readers, now used in K-2 classrooms throughout the US. The Silly Lilly app follows Jack and the Box by Art Spiegelman, the Pulitzer-Prize author of MAUS (featured in the LA Times and Apple’s April 2010 “What’s Hot”, and among the 10 ten apps in France upon release) as well as Little Mouse Gets Ready, by Jeff Smith, the author of the bestselling Bone books, as the third iPhone/iPad app released by TOON Books and iStoryTime, the leader in iphone children’s books.

The entry form for the Sweepstakes ran from April 22, 2010 to June 22, 2010 and was open to both academic and public librarians, as well as teachers from all across the country.

We were even more thrilled when we learned of the overwhelming response: Over 2,300 teachers and librarians entered, all eager for a chance to win a visit by Geisel Award winning author Geoffrey Hayes, along with original artwork, or a FREE COLLECTION of all our prize-winning books.

And now that we’ve notified the winners, we’re pleased to pieces at seeing their explosion of joy:

The Grand Prize winner is Ann Niederkorn from Graham & Parks Alternative Public School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. When notified of her luck, she exclaimed, “HOLY MACKEREL, BATMAN!!! I am so stoked, I can’t even tell you!  This is fabulous news!!!  My little guys really love the TOON comics, and I’m sure they’ll be psyched to meet a real, live TOON author/artist.” We love the enthusiasm Ann, and Geoffrey can’t wait to meet the young readers in your school one-on-one.

The 50 other winners are:

Elizabeth Hester, Irondale Middle School, Birmingham AL

Kimberly McCloud, LRSD-Williams Magnet School, Little Rock AR

Mim Gottschalk, Rancho Mirage Public Library, Rancho Mirage CA

Joanna Ward, Temple City Library, Temple City CA

John Thomas, Spanish Peaks Library District, Walsenburg CO

Marcia Berbeza, Pulaski Elementary School, Wilmington DE

Casey LaPlante, East Windsor Middle School, Broad Brook CT

Roseanne Russo, Marion County Public Library System, Ocala FL

Margaret Troxler, The Epstein School Goldstein Media Center, Atlanta GA

Nicole Annis, Keosauqua Public Library, Keosauqua , IA

Karen Burke, Naperville Public Library, Naperville IL

Katharine Fitzpatrick, Disney Magnet School, Chicago, IL

Mary Evans, Morgan Elementary, Hutchinson KS

Leslie Bahn, St. Martin’s Episcopal School, Metairie LA

Jayne Dudley, Kindercare, Canton MA

Janet Browning, Pointers Run Elementary School, Clarksville MD

Caryn Bartone, Salem-South Lyon District Library, South Lyon MI

Jackie Lannin, Hallie Q Brown Community Center, St. Paul MN

Anna Ruhs, Starkville-Oktibbeha County Public Library System, Starkville MS

Phyllis Danko, Wiggin Memorial Library, Stratham NH

Barbara Kreyling, North Plainfield High School/Middle School, North Plainfield NJ

Michele Beddow, Apshawa Elementary School, West Milford NJ

Nicola McDonald, Brooklyn Public Library Washington Irving Branch, Brooklyn NY

M.L. James, William B. Ward Elementary School, New Rochelle NY

Martha Alcott, Chappaqua Public Library, Chappaqua NY

Jean Berotti, Island Park Public Library, Island Park NY

Mildred Said, Queens Library/South Ozone Park, South Ozone Park NY

Brenda Ballinger, Adams County Public Library, West Union OH

Sally Klepper, Avon Lake Public Library, Avon Lake OH

Rhonda Hancock, Banks Elementary School, Banks OR

Elizabeth Davis, Lackawanna County Children’s Library, Scranton PA

Sharon Lux, St. Michael’s Country Day School, Newport RI

John Hewell, Oconee County (SC) Public Library, Walhalla SC

Lori Finger, Hilton Head Preparatory School, Hilton Head Island SC

Karen Wiechmann, Siouxland Libraries, Sioux Falls SD

Karen Cushing, Pleasant View School, Memphis TN

Kathleen Judd, Hazelwood Elementary School, Clarksville TN

Theresa Rogalski, Wilson Elementary School, Houston TX

Norma Martinez, East Point Elementary School, El Paso TX

Theresa Zelasko, Southwestern University A. Frank Smith Library Center, Georgetown TX

Martha Blackmon, Rusk High School, Rusk TX

Gene Nelson, Provo City Library, Provo UT

Dawn Pleet, Bennett Elementary School, Manassas VA

Angie Rachels, Rockbridge Regional Library, Lexington VA

Ellen Proefrock, Larrymore Elementary School, Norfolk VA

Sherry Clem, Van Wyck Branch Library, Norfolk VA

Mary Alice Powers, Windsor Middle/High School, Windsor VT

Terry Reeder, Cedar Way Elementary School, Mountlake Terrace WA

Jackie Parker, Lynnwood Library, Lynnwood WA

Jennifer Wharton, Matheson Memorial Library, Elkhorn, WI

And here’s a sampling of their reaction:

“This is wonderful. Thank you so much… With school out for the summer we get all the kids coming here more often than they do during the school year so the books will truly be appreciated. Again, thank you very much.”- John Thomas, Spanish Peaks Library District

“Thank you. Thank you. Thank you! We certainly shall enjoy the books. Our patrons are very excited about this series. They are on this year’s school summer suggested reading lists! We can’t thank you enough. This summer’s program is “Make A Splash-Read” You will indeed “make a BIG splash with our readers” ! Thank you for helping make our graphic novel collection a spectacular one for beginner reads.” – Phyllis Danko, Wiggin Memorial Library

“Wow! Wow! Whee hoo! Yippee- Thanks!!!!!! I am very excited to be a winner in your contest- we are mad hot for your older kid books also, so this is very wonderful.” – Jackie Lannin, Hallie Q Brown Community Center

“This is VERY exciting–thank you so much! I just spoke to the head of our Children’s Room and she is thrilled to add these to our collection.” – Martha Alcott, Chappaqua Public Library

“Wow!! Thank you so much and I am a lucky guy!” – Gene Nelson, Provo City Library

“My students will be thrilled when they come back to school next fall!” – Mary Evans, Morgan Elementary

“Thanks so much! … We have several titles in our collection and they are gaining in popularity as patrons discover them. I’m very excited to be able to add these titles!  Thanks again.” – Mim Gottschalk, Rancho Mirage Public Library

“Thank you so much…I am thrilled! I can’t wait to share them with my students!” – Ellen Proefrock, Larrymore Elementary School

“Glad I checked my email today!  How exciting to be a winner.” – Janet Browning, Pointers Run Elementary School

“Wow. I am really excited to be able to add these title to our collection.” - Karen Burke, Naperville Public Library

Jennifer Wharton and the Matheson Memorial Library even blogged their excitement on their library’s website! Check it out!

http://mmlcheckitout.blogspot.com/2010/06/we-won-toon-books.html

All winners will also be announced on the School Library Journal blog “Good Comics for Kids” by Brigid Alverson at http://blog.schoollibraryjournal.com/goodcomicsforkids.

Congratulations to all our winners, thanks to all our entrants, and keep up the contagious reading enthusiasm!

“Where do you shelve your TOON Books?” It’s a question many people have been asking.  TOON Books asked me to share the struggles our library has been having with this issue.  Below, I list both pro and con arguments for each section of the library:

1. J/Comics: This is a pretty small, yet active, collection located near our fiction collection.  We have everything from BabyMouse to Calvin and Hobbes, Rapunzel’s Revenge and Garfield.  Our department runs birth through eighth-grade, and there are a mix of titles and ages on these shelves.  Deep down, TOON Books are comic books.  The reading level may be first-grade, but that doesn’t matter to the reader. Our comics section is pretty far from the readers and picture books, so placing TOON Books with comics makes it difficult for beginning readers (and parents) to find them.  However, placing TOON Books with comics will certainly get them to the children who like comics.   I think there is an argument for placing Toon Books here, but it’s not my first choice.

Photo Credit: Sharon Hrycewicz

2.    JE/Picture Books: This is our largest collection.  The argument for shelving TOON Books here revolves around Geoffrey Hayes, the author of Benny and Penny.  Hayes is an established picture book author, so if you like one Hayes book you are sure to look for others in this section.  The age group targeted for picture books (and their parents) will seek books here.  I’m not sure I want TOON Books here.  It doesn’t feel like the right fit.

Photo Credit: Sharon Hrycewicz

Photo Credit: Sharon Hrycewicz

3.  JE/Readers: I’ve done readability graphs for Benny and Penny in the Toy Breaker and Zig and Wikki in Something Ate My Homework, and both titles score at or below a first-grade level.  Putting TOON Books in our Reader section would be placing them with their peers—they are readers!  I love the idea of comic books for beginning readers. They help develop what I think are good reading skills.  Comics naturally progress from left to right (as does text) and use all sorts of made up words like “zoop” and “poom”.  Beginning readers encounter words they don’t know and must decipher them with their phonics skills.  Placing TOON Books in the early reader section gives beginning readers books to get excited about instead of ubiquitous character books.  I would like to see our Toon Books here,  shelved as JE/Readers/Toon Books (and perhaps kept in a separate display within the Reader section).

That’s what’s happening in our library.  Where do you shelve your TOON Books?

Photo Credit: Sarah Shatz

TOON Books is engaging in a new effort to bring public opinions, comments, and ideas to the forefront.  Our blog will now regularly feature Q&As and opinion pieces shared by parents, librarians, and educators who are eager to chime in on issues dealing with emerging readers.  One topic that we’ve seen a major response to is the labeling and categorizing of our books.  Betsy Bird responded to us on Twitter regarding the shelving of TOON Books: “We shelve ‘em with the other Graphic Novels. Honestly, I wish we put some in the Early Reader section, too. I worry they get lost.” Comics or graphic novels, early readers or picture books, it seems the TOON titles are caught in a web of semantic confusion.  “I’m a little ignorant on specifics: what defines ‘early readers’ and ‘emerging readers?’” tweeted Johanna Draper Carlson of Comics Worth Reading.  We enthusiastically welcome your thoughts on definitions of these labels and where the TOON books belong.

1. How did you first find out about TOON Books, its website, and the Benny and Penny blog?

I attended a workshop with Francoise Mouly about using comics in the classroom. Our kids love the visual nature of comics. Upper elementary readers can get so much information from the pictures, making reading more enjoyable, especially for those who aren’t top-notch readers yet.

2. When did you begin work at 47′s Edith Kleberg Library, and what drew you there?

I have been the librarian here since 2001. I was working at a great secondary school but wanted to work with little kids after having a child myself. It was word of mouth, really. They had been looking for a Deaf librarian and couldn’t find a good candidate, so they settled for me. I have learned how to sign basic conversational ASL, and this summer I hope to focus on it more. I usually work with a talented sign language interpreter so they get good ASL language model, which is especially important for storytelling. They were looking for someone who loves children’s books and understands the technology undergirding the library program today, and I fit that bill.

3. How exactly did you integrate the blog into your library time, and how did the students respond?

The students are currently using a blog in their classroom, so I thought it would be a great way to reinforce the format of a blog. They had also seen the Toon Books site, which I introduced the week prior. I read a vignette of Benny and Penny to introduce the characters to those who might not know the siblings, and then showed them the picture projected onto the library Smartboard. I asked them to write in their library notebooks what Penny might be thinking. While walking around, I tried to steer them beyond “I am scared,” and sometimes had to ask who the speaker was when they wrote “Penny is scared.” I also took screen shots of stills of the previous comics on the blog and made a sequencing game on the Smartboard for students who finished early. They enjoyed the game and used both their visual skills and reading skills to sequence, especially the one with the song. Others went on to create comics on the comic maker. I think the blog exercise of filling in the speech bubble gave them an entry point for creating their own comics and filling in their own speech bubbles. They were primed.

4. We’re particularly interested in 47′s place as an American Sign Language and English school. Are there any insights you’ve developed about how your school—and your students—differ from those that don’t employ ASL? Have you found that some books, resources and web tools are more successful than others with deaf and hard-of-hearing students?

As you know, ASL is a visual language, and these students are very attuned visually. To describe a person, they are honest. No bones about it, if a person is fat, that is the first descriptor. I love the way that you can interject points of grammar into your teaching when you know a class is bilingual. For instance, we did a lesson based on the new Walter Dean Myers picture book/poem called Looking at Me. They watch with an intensity that is surprising. They see details that I do not see, but in many ways most children are like that. Adults have learned how to focus so much more than children that they miss a lot of the visual cues.

They made a list poem of who they were (Artist, Writer, etc.), and they were signing it without the classifier that meant “person who does” so I, being only an elementary signer myself, was able to grab that teachable moment, and show them how to make “artist” out of the sign “art”. The same happened when using the speech bubbles, where you can reiterate first person versus third person.

Toon Books have been a great hit with our third to fifth grade students who have had little to no English language in the household. We have one hearing 5th grader who has some ASL and some Spanish in the home—a wonderful artist, quite dreamy, but cannot grasp English easily. She is reading on a first grade level in 5th grade, and loves Toon Books. Another student is a deaf third grader who came from Mexico when he was in Kindergarten, but whose parents are hearing. He had little to no language input as a young child being Deaf in a hearing environment and is one of the greatest enthusiasts. All of my students, Deaf, hearing and hard-of-hearing that are reading below grade level have been enjoying your books. They are easier to understand than Owly, I think—more relevant.

As for the students who employ ASL and are at grade level, I read Silly Lilly to a Pre-K class, and they chanted it as I read it. I was surprised how well they responded.

Obviously, the web site’s text is key. It is better that books not be captioned and rather light up when you scroll through.  The more integrated the text into the pictures the better, so the students don’t have to keep looking here then there.

To Linda Parnes’ class at P.S. 109: Thank you for all of your thoughtful comments and imaginative drawings!

Nadja, Geoffrey, and the children not only read Zig and Wikki and Benny and Penny together but also created their own new comic characters.  Our TOON authors point out that it still seems magical to kids when they watch a drawing evolve out of what was just a blank sheet of paper.  First, Nadja and the students helped Geoffrey draw monsters by calling out suggestions for scary features, then the students spent about fifteen minutes drawing their own monsters and discussed them with the authors.  “The kids really got into helping me draw monsters,” Geoffrey says.  “Mohawks are big these days. So more than one of my monsters ended up with a Mohawk.”

At all three schools, the visiting TOON authors found students to be enthusiastic, attentive, and inspiring.  Although Geoffrey left his drawings behind for each school library, the children weren’t ready for the authors to go.  Instead, they gathered around Geoffrey and Nadja and asked for stories, pictures, and lots of hugs.

What’s your interest in doll-making?

Dolls fascinate me with their controversial state. What I mean by this is that dolls are realistic in an artificial way or artificial in a realistic way. A doll captures a moment and lives forever in that state. [Dolls] live in a world of unlimited imagination that humans are not able to participate in as a whole.

How did you make these dolls?

First, I would read the character’s book couple of times and without looking at the book I would come up with a quick sketch…After the first sketch was finished, I would go back to add details and correct proportions. Then I tried to imagine the 3D form of the doll and deconstruct it in my head to flat pattern form. During the process, I researched different fabric shops to find the best representation of the doll. After all the patterns are made and fabrics are found, it’s just simple cut and sew.

How closely did you work with the TOON Books when creating these dolls?

I would always have the book around me and I tried to read every time I had a moment. I read the books quickly because this way I could capture the first impression of the doll and characteristics that stand out the most. I believe in doll-making, capturing personality is very important.  Like I said, a doll captures a moment.

I would love to continue working with TOON Books until they are tired of me! I grew up reading comics, which has helped me learn how to read and write (and of course, I still love reading them!). Furthermore, I believe that reading cartoons helps build up creativity/imaginations…I like to be a part of creating a imaginary world and to allow [other] people to be part of it.

You can see more pictures of Sabrina’s Little Mouse doll on our site.  One of these handmade plush dolls is the perfect collectible; in addition to fully functioning clothes, Little Mouse comes with a certificate of authenticity and a copy of the Little Mouse Gets Ready hardcover signed by Jeff Smith.

We love to pick up the characters’ toys and books together, because when you hold them in your hands, the motivation for their creation becomes clear.  In a world of modern objects that are so often disposable — of other books’ thin paper and flimsy covers, or other dolls’ slick faces, hanging threads or loose buttons — the Little Mouse doll and book stand out.  They are both created to last, and to be loved.