I’ve said it before in my blog, but I just love the idea of reading graphic novels. I have been volunteering in a classroom for a while, during the students reading time. There is one boy that I work with who just does not like reading. He is not a bad reader by any means; he just gets bored or frustrated reading. He really loves sports. Football and basketball are his favorites, but I found a graphic novel on baseball and couldn’t resist brining it in for him to read.
The book I choose to read is, Too Many Time Machines, by Mark Alan Stamaty. It is a graphic novel about a boy who loves baseball and wants to practice with his friends so that they can win the championship. However, all of his friends would rather play with their time machines. So, the boy decides to use his own time machine to travel back in time to meet Babe Ruth and discover the secret of home run hitting. Before reading it I had him thumb through the pages to see if this would be something he might be interested in reading. As he looked through the book he saw that it wasn’t your typical ‘school’ book and seemed pretty excited to see what it was all about. We read the entire book in two sessions. He loved it! Not only was it a subject he was interested in, the change in format really sparked his interest. When we were done reading the book, he even asked if I could bring in another one like it! This is what I love about this class… if I had never had to research a genre or see examples of such different genres I would NEVER have thought to get a book like this.
The book I choose to read is, Too Many Time Machines, by Mark Alan Stamaty. It is a graphic novel about a boy who loves baseball and wants to practice with his friends so that they can win the championship. However, all of his friends would rather play with their time machines. So, the boy decides to use his own time machine to travel back in time to meet Babe Ruth and discover the secret of home run hitting. Before reading it I had him thumb through the pages to see if this would be something he might be interested in reading. As he looked through the book he saw that it wasn’t your typical ‘school’ book and seemed pretty excited to see what it was all about. We read the entire book in two sessions. He loved it! Not only was it a subject he was interested in, the change in format really sparked his interest. When we were done reading the book, he even asked if I could bring in another one like it! This is what I love about this class… if I had never had to research a genre or see examples of such different genres I would NEVER have thought to get a book like this.
Wow your blog makes me want to read this book. I love the idea that graphic novels are becomming bigger and bigger in schools. I think if I would have had access to these types of books when I was in school I would have read way more. The only problem was this wasnt considered "reading" by a lot of my teacehrs so we were pushed away from it. It is nice to see it worked out for you though.
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