One of my favorite parts about working in children’s publishing is seeing the impact our books have on real, live children. Our artists love getting fan mail of course, and we love it when they share it with us.

Which brings me to Tressley.

Tressley is such a huge fan of Little Mouse by Jeff Smith, that she designed a hat to celebrate the book! Her dad tells us, “She read Little Mouse Gets Ready to her first grade class while wearing it, and the whole class fell in love with Little Mouse, just like she did.”

When it came time to write a fan letter to Jeff, her dad says “she acted as if she was actually about to meet him, extremely shy. However, she did finally convey to me what she wanted to say, and I have typed her message exactly how she presented it.”

Dear Mr. Smith:

My name is Tressley. I love to draw. I think you are a great artist. I love the ending of Little Mouse Gets Ready, because it was, like, POOF! No clothes. I really like how you drew the book. The mice are cute. I think the Bone books are funny too, especially the snow that goes WHUMP! and just falls out of the sky. My Daddy has a shirt like Phoney Bone. Me and my twin brother hit it and act like we are invincible like when the Mario Bros. get invincible because of stars.

Sincerely,

Tressley

On March 3rd, Nadja Spiegelman and Trade Loeffler went to the Greenlight Bookstore in Brooklyn to read their new tale of Zig and Wikki in The Cow. Already the book is getting great reviews!

The students in our 2nd and 3rd grade who’ve read this just enjoy the humor and want to keep reading. That’s the sort of story I like to put in as many hands as I can!
—Mary Ann Scheuer, Great Kid Books

Spiegelman again strikes an effective balance between hijinks and education… Loeffler’s art captures animals with a simple realism and aliens with gentle humor, and gives the whole enterprise a breezy zing. The reading level, while on the higher end of the TOON Books spectrum, will not interfere with the fun.
— Jess Karp, Booklist

A great read and I think this series is going to appeal to a wide range of ages since it can easily be read aloud to younger children and the science-based presentations are funny and mature enough for upper elementary kids. Can’t wait for the next Zig and Wikki book!
—Nicola, Back to Books

So be sure to check out Zig and Wikki in The Cow, at Toon Books!

TOON books is showing you our love with a brand new Level 1 book! In Chick & Chickie, two mischievous little chickens play all day long in their very own special way. Claude Ponti, one of the world’s most beloved children’s book authors, has packed the pictures with witty side jokes and hilarious details. The fast-paced and zany narrative will instantly delight young readers and will soon turn reading into play.

Enter our contest!

Win two TOON Books!

Who is the Chick to your Chickie? The Chickie to your Chick? Do you have a feathery sidekick in all that you do? Tell us who YOUR Chickie, in the comments below or on Facebook or Twitter and be entered to win! Ten lucky readers with the most chirp-worthy stories of best-friendship or love will receive TWO free copies of Chick & Chickie – one sent to you and one sent to your Chickie!

Here are a few of our favorite entries so far:

“My Chickie is my sister! Though we’re more-or-less “grown-ups” now, we still love to do stuff together and often end up laughing so hard we can’t breath. And we do the typical sister things, like saying exactly the same things at the same time…” — Catherine Barnett , via facebook

“My Chickie is my little girl, Evelyn. She loves telling her own jokes and I love to laugh at them. I love to tickle her, and she loves to be tickled. She can do so much on her own, yet she still wants me to be by her side. She is my little Chickie ” — Jess Smart Smiley, via facebook

“My favorite Chickie is my 5-yr-old daughter Avery! Her enthusiasm and joie de vivre are a constant inspiration for me and source of delight for our whole family.” — Meg Cogburn Wilson, via facebook

“My chickie is my best friend Katie @Lilteegs1 Even though we live far apart, we still love doing everything together!” — Ryan Donovan, via Twitter

“I have two favorite Chickies: my daughter Alice and my son Alexander. Alice’s sense of humor, kindness and hunger for knowledge and Alexander’s quickness and thinking that he could outsmart his Mom — keep me on my “knuckles.”" — Anna Lvova, via facebook

“My favorite chickie is my daughter. Although she is 30 now we still have lots of fun together. We aren’t beyond being silly and we love to share our fun with children, and maybe someday soon with her own little chick or chickie.” — Jean Kammer, via facebook

“My daughter Tilly is my Chickie. She is very literally my sidekick on a daily basis, but she’s also been a support for me in ways she doesn’t yet know. In fact, she helped our family get through a very tough time. I’m also appreciative of our reading time together and how reading with her has reawakened my love for favorite childhood books and helped me discover new ones. Is there anything more special than sharing a good book with your Chickie?” — Emily Gorovsky Raij, via facebook

“Our school’s 1st grade is the Chick to our Chickie. We love seeing them read @toonbooks so when they’re our age they’ll read our fave GNs.” — Mr. W’s Class, via Twitter

“My favorite Chickie is my daughter Sophie. She’s five, and I’ve been working hard to share the joy of comics with her. She loves Johnny Boo, Beanworld, Bone, and Toon Books. She also enjoys making her baby brother laugh, and is just learning how to read by herself.” — Lionel English, via facebook

“My friend Amy is my Chickie. She is an awesome 2nd grade teacher that loves to find interesting things for her students to read. She is AMAZING and really works hard to find the perfect reading material for her students.” — Kkdanville Danville, via facebook

“My daughter Charley is my Chickie. When I asked if I was her sidekick, she said “No, you’re my henchman”" — Tom B., via Twitter

“My partner, Rick, is my Chickie Sweetie-in-Cahooties! Why? He loves comic Toon stories as much as I do!” — Joy Chu, via facebook

“My chickie is my sister. We are 4 years apart and fought like cats and dogs when we were young. We are now best friends and always will be. We’ve been thru a lot together and are always there for each other. I know o can call any time of day and she will be there.” — Debbie Crocker Baker, via facebook

Enter now by telling us who YOUR Chickie is in the comments below or on Facebook or Twitter! The contest will be open until midnight the evening of 12/14.

Don’t they make a pretty display?

How did you first hear about TOON Books?

I first heard about TOON Books when I started buying children’s books for 57th Street Books. We used to have a few of them and keep them in our graphic novel section, but they really got my attention when Candlewick started distributing them last year, and my publisher representative told me that Francoise specifically requested that they be shelved with other beginning reader books, in order to really emphasize their learn-to-read function.

You said you’re a huge Benjamin Bear fan…what drew you to this book in particular?

I completely fell in love with the Benjamin Bear’s absurd humor, I still crack up at pretty much every page. The gags of his semi-logic are so instantaneous and satisfying! I tend to read longer form, narrative, un-funny comics, so Benjamin Bear provides some welcome variation. Plus, I’ve recommended this book to six-year-olds and Heidegger scholars and have received equally positive responses.

What would make you recommend a comic book like ours to a parent of a young reader?

TOON books are awesome for beginning readers, because the pictures are so vivid and descriptive and are as central to the story as the words. Early reader books tend to be very monotonous for parents, because their structure requires extremely simple stories with lots of repeated words. TOON books take a different approach, and because they’re more vibrant and dynamic than so much else that’s out there, parents are actually excited to read them with their kids. Also, even reluctant readers who may be intimidated by even an early chapter book are likely to pick up a comic book and get sucked in!

What’s your favorite part about being a bookseller?

I love really being a part of the neighborhood community and getting to know people by talking to them about books. Parents will actually stop me at the grocery store and tell me how much their kids loved the books I recommended to them — it’s so gratifying to be able to share books in such an active way. My other favorite thing is being aware of pretty much every book coming out from major presses (and some small ones!) in any given season and being able read widely and to have a sense of what’s generally going on in the literary landscape. It’s great feeling like an ambassador of the book world!

What’s the most recent book you read and loved?

The book that I’ve been evangelizing for all year is Lidia Yuknavitch’s brilliant memoir The Chronology of Water. It completely explodes the genre of the grief/addiction/abuse memoir, eradicates all the cliches, and is this stunning floating experimental piece takes the metaphor of swimming (Yuknavitch was a competitive, nearly Olympic swimmer) to basically invent a new language and form for this genre. It’s ecstatic and moving and it’s about being and becoming a writer and if you haven’t read it yet it will completely blow your mind.

Over ninety local 2nd graders gathered at the bookstore for the reading and were asked, “What makes you mad?”

“When my little sister pretends to be my mom,” said one girl.

“When my little sister jumps on me when I’m trying to sleep,” said another.

The children sat still for the reading of the book by TOON Books staff member Leigh Stein, and Hilary, the artist behind the legendary Eloise books, but were jumping out of their chairs when he drew sketches of two lucky audience members (hey, even we were jealous!).

“I tended not ever to do books after the fame of Eloise,” says Knight, “But this was so really different.”

Viva, whose illustrations have appeared in The New Yorker, Time Magazine, and the New York Times, also shared his thoughts on working in the field of children’s literature. He told the Post, “I’ve always wanted to do a kids book. The idea that I could combine words and pictures and books—three of my favourite things—just really appealed to me. I thought I’d get around to it one day, and finally I did.”

Viva will work his magic again for his second children’s book, to be published by TOON Books. Keep your eyes peeled for the latest updates on his upcoming title here at the TOON Books blog!

Tony Evers, State Superintendent of Public Instruction for Wisconsin, said in a local newspaper, “The loss in mathematics, spelling, and reading skills can accumulate each year so that by the end of sixth grade, children who repeatedly experience summer learning loss can be as much as two years behind their classmates.” He noted that just reading 10 or more books over the summer can help maintain or improve a child’s academic skills.

Luckily, comics make reading a whole lot of fun. Kids love comics, and their visual appeal encourages even the most reluctant of readers to open a book during those long summer days. Schools and libraries, as well as media outlets across the country have included TOON Books on their summer reading lists. This year, “Little Mouse Gets Ready” was selected for the Illinois School Library Media Association’s list of book nominations for the Monarch Award, where all children from grades K to 3 in the state are open to vote for their favorite book at their school libraries (the book with the most votes gets the top prize). Prolific children’s book reviewer Holly Newton, whose weekly column appears in the most widely distributed paper in mid-Missouri, included a number of TOON Books, including our new “Silly Lilly in What Will I Be Today?,” on her summer reading list of books for early readers.

Are TOON Books on your summer reading list?

When Kate DeRosier, the accounts manager for Boarders, Amazon and Ingram at Candlewick Press, saw the page above, she said, “I just fell in love with the tops of their heads.”