johnny boo!

yes, look at johnny boo, the cutest ghost on earth.  this is one of the comics i bought this weekend, mainly for my niece, but you know i read it too!  it's a sweet little story, about johnny and his pet ghost squiggle, and eating ice cream and a monster they think is mean but who really isn't.  the colors are bright and the images undeniably adorable, and at 7 i think maggie will be able to read most of it herself.  i bought all of the johnny boo books they had there, which was everything but the halloween one.  she's getting one today, and the rest throughout the year.  added bonus: if she digs them, she'll read them to calvin and he'll get into comics and my mission to innoculate all my nieces and nephews will be complete!

i love comics for kids because it encourages them to read for fun.  i think once that becomes a habit, they read more and more for pleasure, not just because they "have" to.  it's true that i'm biased about comics, though.  i never realized how reading them as a kid was so influential later.  i mainly read archie comics (superhero comics in the 80s were really very macho), and then about 12 i discovered mad magazine, which was disgusting and wonderful.  to this day i think lying down on the floor with a comic book is about the best way to spend an afternoon.  kids who get to read comics like to draw, and learn about the interplay between visual and verbal communication, and spend time engaged in important imaginative thought.  they are also just a good time.  they can be art or they can be just big dumb fun, like anything.  what's more fun than spending a happy afternoon with a kid and a comic book, though? not much.