The Many Adventures of Johnny Mutton {Exploring Graphic Novels}

On Sunday, I celebrated Being Our of My Reading Comfort Zone with Ruth Ayers and community.  It's been about ten years since Baby Mouse and Lunch Lady entered my life.  I've been teaching younger grades recently and thought I would share books I'm exploring to learn more about graphic novels myself.  I'm also not going to google - What is a graphic novel?, until next weekend.  I want to explore, learn on my own and share my learning here.

The Many Adventures of Johnny Mutton written and illustrated by James Proimos is filled with six short stories.  A great feature for transitional readers who might be striving to retain longer stories.  The first story is a story we are all familiar with...a baby left on the front porch of a house.  But this baby isn't a human baby, it's a baby sheep who a human agrees to raise and care for.  This sets Johnny up for being a little bit different which guides his adventures and interactions with others.  He is funny and I really enjoyed his twists that make him successful in unlikely situations for a sheep.

I learned graphic novels can have short stories that can stand alone.  This graphic novel seemed to have more story through out the book above or below the graphic box making the reading a bit more involved than just speech bubbles.  As a reader, I love epilogues and this book has a follow up for each character on a page titled; Where Are They Now?

Johnny Boo {Exploring Graphic Novels}

On Sunday, I celebrated Being Our of My Reading Comfort Zone with Ruth Ayers and community.  It's been about ten years since Baby Mouse and Lunch Lady entered my life.  I've been teaching younger grades recently and thought I would share books I'm exploring to learn more about graphic novels myself.  I'm also not going to google - What is a graphic novel?, until next weekend.  I want to explore, learn on my own and share my learning here.

Johnny Boo The Best Little Ghost in the World! by James Kochalka is a fun story about two ghost friends and an ice cream monster.  As you might imagine an ice cream monster is a fun loving character and not that scary at all.  Squiggle and Johnny Boo start the book with a game of chase.  Their friendship has dialogue I'm sure our students can encounter on the playground.  Language around super powers, cheating, and sorries.  They decide to get ice cream and have strong feelings that the ice cream monster is mean.  I don't think anyone who likes ice cream can be mean.  It's a cute ending about becoming friends and solving worries.

I learned graphic novels can have chapters.  This book is illustrated in just five colors and I like that color scheme.  It seemed less busy than others in my stack and let me focus not he words; in and out of speech bubbles.  This is obviously in the genre of fantasy which made me think about graphic novels being a format; not a genre.  I just discovered there are several stories with Johnny Boo for my readers who love series books.

Morning Mystery {Exploring Graphic Novels}

Yesterday I celebrated Being Our of My Reading Comfort Zone with Ruth Ayers and community.  It's been about ten years since Baby Mouse and Lunch Lady entered my life.  I've been teaching younger grades recently and thought I would share books I'm exploring to learn more about graphic novels myself.  I'm also not going to google - What is a graphic novel?, until next weekend.  I want to explore and learn on my own.

Morning Mystery by Christianne C Jones and illustrated by Remy Simard is part of a series, My 1st Graphic Novel.  I fell in love with this book before I even read it because after the title page there is guidance for the reader, How to Read a Graphic Novel.  Perfect even for me, an adult reader.  

Brynn is too tired to get up in the morning and has a rough start.  There is water in her slippers.  The toothpaste went everywhere; creating a mess.  After pouring her milk at breakfast she noticed it was green!  She looks around the kitchen for clues and finds answers when her mom turns the calendar for the month.  I think readers will really enjoy finding out who is behind her unusual morning start.  

I learned graphic novels can be realistic fiction.  The layout can be easy for readers with just one - three text boxes to navigate per page.  With the help from the How to Read a Graphic Novel I carefully read each box of text and illustrations in order to increase my comprehension and joy.  I also think this book would make a great guided reading group because the story line is easy to follow and relatable for students.