The Stonekeeper (Amulet #1), 1 - by Kazu Kibuishi

My 8 year old loved the book. It’s more like a comic book. I even enjoyed reading that book.

My son was assigned this for literature circle. He loved it so much he then asked me to get every book. I mentioned it to a friend who said that it was the series that first got her same-aged (8 going on 9) year old son really interested in reading. My son can read non-fiction chapter books like Scott Kelly’s memoir of his year in space and only struggle with complicated technological space vocabulary and the Russian names. But he isn’t drawn to those books. He loves to draw and these books have given him a real interest in storyboarding his own drawings, so he is practicing developing and telling a story visually. These are the kind of thing he rereads over and over and really pays attention to the artwork as well, picking up a lot of visual communication tools in the process. His teacher assigned this because she wanted to teach them to use the visual cues to infer context, emotion etc, and use it when backing up their arguments when asserting an idea about what they are reading. It is a really interesting strategy! As a designer I am amazed that so many of us grow up without any education in visual communication and storytelling. This is not just a ‘comic book.’ It’s a graphic novel, a distinction I finally appreciate. It made me pick up George Takei’s memoir graphic novel “They Called Us Enemy” and read it with my son, who is trying to learn a lot about WWII, and prefers nonfiction. It’s a really powerful and important book! I’m so glad his teacher got me to rethink the world of graphic novels.

I was hoping to find a chapter book for my 9 with minimal pictures and a good story line. My son loved the summary of it so we bought it. Well it’s not a chapter book. It’s literally a comic book. So instead of reading it my son just looks at the pictures and turns the page. So we returned the book.