Coming Spring From Toon Books
Toon Books, publisher of elegant hardcover comics for early readers, has announced their five titles coming this spring. The first three are Level 1, which means they’re aimed at kindergarten through first grade readers. The title links go to the publisher’s website, which has preview pages for each.
Kevin McCloskey follows up his amusing and educational We Dig Worms! with The Real Poop on Pigeons. It will be out April 19.
Just who’s cooing outside? Did you know pigeons can fly faster than a car and farther than a small airplane? Or that they have something unusual in common with penguins, flamingos, and even the dodo? With his trademark mix of humor, well-researched facts, and artistry, Kevin McCloskey delivers the straight poop on these humble creatures, which turn out to be…coo, coo, COOL!
Another returning artist is Philippe Coudray, who does the entertaining Benjamin Bear series. He and his twin brother Jean-Luc have A Goofy Guide to Penguins, due out May 10.
How can you tell penguins apart? By the color of their mittens, of course! But do penguins really play hide-and-seek, carry pink umbrellas, and shower on the backs of whales? In this wild guide, twin brothers Jean-Luc Coudray and Philippe Coudray… bring us all the less-than-true truths and not-so factual facts about the South Pole’s silliest birds.
James Sturm (The Center for Cartoon Studies) takes a very different tack from the Adventures in Cartooning series with Birdsong: A Story in Pictures. Its wordless storytelling is inspired by kamishibai, the art of Japanese paper theater, and an appendix has more information about that craft. It’s due out April 5.
An innocent bird meets two cruel kids and changes their world forever -– but exactly how this unfolds is up to you since the story is wordless. It is meant to be narrated by each reader in his or her own way. The spare and elegant images by master cartoonist James Sturm are the visual equivalent of haikus — they leave space for children to inhabit this timeless tale–and make it their own.
Coming later in the season are two Toon Graphics, graphic novels aimed at ages 8 and up. Sea Change is by Frank Viva (A Trip to the Bottom of the World with Mouse). Due out May 24, it’s a coming-of-age story about a boy’s summer in a small village.
One summer can change your whole life. As soon as school lets out, Eliot’s parents send him to the very edge of the world: a fishing village in a remote part of Nova Scotia. And what does the small town of Point Aconi have to offer? Maggots, bullies, and grumpy old men. But along the way, Eliot discovers much more — a hidden library, starry nights, and a mysterious girl named Mary Beth.
There’s also the latest in the Toon Mythology series, Oedipus: Trapped by Destiny by Yvan Pommaux, due out June 7.
