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Toon Books
Toon Books is a publisher of hardcover comic book early readers founded by Françoise Mouly. With titles by such creators as Geoffrey Hayes, Jay Lynch, Dean Haspiel, Eleanor Davis, and Mouly's collaborator and husband, Art Spiegelman, Toon Books promotes its line as "the first high-quality comics designed for children ages four and up".
The concept for Toon Books came to Mouly when her son Dash was learning to read, and his first-grade teacher assigned him "easy readers". Appalled by the lack of appeal of the educational material, Mouly instead spent time with her child and armloads of French comic books. In fact, one of the first Toon Books releases was Agnès Rosenstiehl's Silly Lilly, a.k.a. Mimi Cracra, a comic-book character familiar to millions of French toddlers.
After proposing the Toon Books idea to major children's books publishers from 2004 to 2007, and being rejected because the proposed books didn't fit existing categories, Mouly returned to her roots as a self-publisher — she had founded her small press, RAW Books & Graphics, in 1977, and RAW Junior in 1999. As she had done for the avant-garde comics and graphics magazine RAW, or the kids comics anthology Little Lit, both of which she co-edited, or for the covers of The New Yorker, Mouly gathered an array of talent for Toon Books.
2008 saw the launch of eight titles, featuring star authors (such as Harry Bliss, Art Spiegelman or Jeff Smith), veteran children's book authors (Geoffrey Hayes) as well as novice cartoonists (Eleanor Davis, the author of Stinky, was still in art school when Mouly contacted her).[citation needed] The initial line of titles received glowing reviews and multiple awards, prizes, and distinctions. Upon Toon Books' debut, Publishers Weekly characterized the line as having the potential to revitalize the field of comics for kids: "Françoise Mouly is at it again. After transforming American comics with the seminal 1980s comics anthology RAW, Mouly is now out to teach kids to read by using comics".
In fall 2012, Toon Books released its first Toon graphic novel, The Secret of the Stone Frog, by David Nytra. Two years later, Toon Books launched an imprint called Toon Graphics aimed at readers eight and up.
When it first launched, Toon Books was distributed by Diamond Books, a unit of Diamond Comic Distributors dedicated to getting comics and graphic novels into the book trade. In 2010, Toon Books entered into a distribution partnership with Candlewick Press. In late summer/early fall of 2014, Toon Books launched the new line TOON Graphics, an imprint for readers 8 and up. It was distributed from by Consortium, a unit of Perseus, a move that reflects Toon's true status as a small but expanding independent publisher.
Attitudes towards comics have radically changed since the 1954 Congressional hearings where they were denounced as the cause of juvenile delinquency. They are now touted by progressive librarians and educators as an effective tool for children to discover the pleasures of reading. As Art Spiegelman said, "comics can be a gateway drug to literacy".
In the absence of any model or precedent, Mouly developed her own methodology to make sure the TOON Books would be well adapted to beginning readers' needs. She consulted with educators as she developed each individual book but also took rough drafts of the stories to schools, taking notes while watching children read. Responding to educators' and librarians' suggestions, Mouly expanded the Toon Books line with bilingual versions (French publisher Casterman just released French-English Toon Books), audio versions (which will be developed into a novel multilingual tool for ESL and/or support for reluctant readers),[citation needed] as well as the first nonfiction Toon Book.
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Toon Books
Toon Books is a publisher of hardcover comic book early readers founded by Françoise Mouly. With titles by such creators as Geoffrey Hayes, Jay Lynch, Dean Haspiel, Eleanor Davis, and Mouly's collaborator and husband, Art Spiegelman, Toon Books promotes its line as "the first high-quality comics designed for children ages four and up".
The concept for Toon Books came to Mouly when her son Dash was learning to read, and his first-grade teacher assigned him "easy readers". Appalled by the lack of appeal of the educational material, Mouly instead spent time with her child and armloads of French comic books. In fact, one of the first Toon Books releases was Agnès Rosenstiehl's Silly Lilly, a.k.a. Mimi Cracra, a comic-book character familiar to millions of French toddlers.
After proposing the Toon Books idea to major children's books publishers from 2004 to 2007, and being rejected because the proposed books didn't fit existing categories, Mouly returned to her roots as a self-publisher — she had founded her small press, RAW Books & Graphics, in 1977, and RAW Junior in 1999. As she had done for the avant-garde comics and graphics magazine RAW, or the kids comics anthology Little Lit, both of which she co-edited, or for the covers of The New Yorker, Mouly gathered an array of talent for Toon Books.
2008 saw the launch of eight titles, featuring star authors (such as Harry Bliss, Art Spiegelman or Jeff Smith), veteran children's book authors (Geoffrey Hayes) as well as novice cartoonists (Eleanor Davis, the author of Stinky, was still in art school when Mouly contacted her).[citation needed] The initial line of titles received glowing reviews and multiple awards, prizes, and distinctions. Upon Toon Books' debut, Publishers Weekly characterized the line as having the potential to revitalize the field of comics for kids: "Françoise Mouly is at it again. After transforming American comics with the seminal 1980s comics anthology RAW, Mouly is now out to teach kids to read by using comics".
In fall 2012, Toon Books released its first Toon graphic novel, The Secret of the Stone Frog, by David Nytra. Two years later, Toon Books launched an imprint called Toon Graphics aimed at readers eight and up.
When it first launched, Toon Books was distributed by Diamond Books, a unit of Diamond Comic Distributors dedicated to getting comics and graphic novels into the book trade. In 2010, Toon Books entered into a distribution partnership with Candlewick Press. In late summer/early fall of 2014, Toon Books launched the new line TOON Graphics, an imprint for readers 8 and up. It was distributed from by Consortium, a unit of Perseus, a move that reflects Toon's true status as a small but expanding independent publisher.
Attitudes towards comics have radically changed since the 1954 Congressional hearings where they were denounced as the cause of juvenile delinquency. They are now touted by progressive librarians and educators as an effective tool for children to discover the pleasures of reading. As Art Spiegelman said, "comics can be a gateway drug to literacy".
In the absence of any model or precedent, Mouly developed her own methodology to make sure the TOON Books would be well adapted to beginning readers' needs. She consulted with educators as she developed each individual book but also took rough drafts of the stories to schools, taking notes while watching children read. Responding to educators' and librarians' suggestions, Mouly expanded the Toon Books line with bilingual versions (French publisher Casterman just released French-English Toon Books), audio versions (which will be developed into a novel multilingual tool for ESL and/or support for reluctant readers),[citation needed] as well as the first nonfiction Toon Book.