Can the X-Men Make You Smarter?

It has taken the Literacy Establishment 30 years to figure out what kids have known for at least as long. Comic books are good for your brain. What’s good for comics, and good for readers, is that comics have never been better or more diverse. If you’ve ever thought twice about buying your child the X-Men because it didn’t seem “rigorous”, think again. Comics are one of the most powerful tools we have in the fight against illiteracy, low-literacy and aliteracy (being able to read, but not doing it). Many people are starting to take notice, you should too.

Last year, the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) selected graphic novels as their theme for Teen Read Week. YALSA is the organization that selects authors for the Printz Award, which is much like the Pulitzer for adult books, and the Newbery for childrens books. That YALSA should select graphic novels as a focus is important because they recommend policies for librarians all the across the country. Another important cultural indicator that comics in general, and graphic novels in particular are taken seriously is their growing presence in book reviews. Both Entertainment Weekly and The New York Times now review graphic novels.

There are generally two kinds of graphic novels. The “collected” editions, which are just that; a number of single issues bound together in book form. And, graphic novels, long comic stories told in book form. Both have their advantages: fairly cheap, average price being around $15.95. But collected editions being what they are can cost more because they are often just large portions on an ongoing serial. Complete one volume graphic novels have the benefit ( or weakness, depending on what you want) of being over once you finish that one book. These days, some comics publishers have gone back and collected early issues of popular series in order to bring newer readers up to speed.

Even with all the attention comics are getting they are still a hard sell for some parents and educators. So, to put the skeptics at ease, I offer the following story.

When my son was eight, and making the switch from short chapter books with pictures, to short novels, he was often anxious staring at “all those words.” I’d started reading long chapter books like Harry Potter and The Sorcerer’s Stone to him that same year. I thought that by reading The Big Books, it would help him with the little ones. I was wrong, sort of. No matter what kind of short novels I bought, it was the same story. He would read the first third or so and then I’d find the book on the floor or back on his bookshelf unread. His teacher told me he did fine when they discussed stories in class. This was because I’d always read to him. Listening to stories wasn’t the worry spot, it was getting him to read them.

While studying the Read Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease I came across the section on comics. There was the suggestion that comics could be used to “bridge” the leap from picture books to short novels. I started thinking about my own development as a reader. For as long as I could remember I’d been a strong reader. There had never been a time when I wasn’t reading. Comics were what I read the most of from about age 8 to 15. I went back and re-read the Trelease chapter again. It said that comics made good “bridges” because the language was just as complex as that in regular books but comics broke the text up into manageable bite-size chunks. This makes dealing with big words and long sentences less intimidating to some reluctant readers. I knew this to be true from my own experience. Many of the “hard” words I knew as a kid came from comics. I got nebula from the X-Men, radiation from The Amazing Spider Man, and mead from The Mighty Thor. I was given a vocabulary/comprehension test in the sixth grade, the vocabulary score came back at the 13/14th grade level. To this day I believe comics played a significant part in me beating that test. So, after some reflection and no small amount of discovery, I decided to get my boy a graphic novel.