My New Idea for a Comics Club

I facilitate for student book clubs with lists of books that are provided by my district, and I enjoy it very much! I like seeing the students get excited about certain books and certain authors. There are great discussions that the books have inspired. Every year though, without fail when I go around and ask the students what were their favorite books--inevitably they are the graphic novels. Not only are they easy to read, quite often the stories are exciting and involve a hero of some kind. One of the things I LOVE about this current trend is there are so many strong girls depicted! Parents have come to me asking if they should encourage them to read these books and my answer is always--YES! Anything your kiddos get excited about reading should be encouraged, even if you don't think it has "literary" value.

I am starting at a new school and am going to pitch this idea to my principal. I want to do a book club where all we read and discuss is graphic novels! We can look at the history of how they started, maybe even get some local authors to come visit with us. Watch videos on how the stories are drawn and then at the end of the year I want to have our own Comic Con where the students can dress up like their favorite characters and maybe some will want to display books of their own that they have written.

I wrote a Donorschoose proposal for the books, I know many of you are poor teachers like me but maybe it's something that you can share:  Comics Club

Here are some of my favorite graphic novels:

This is a great story about a girl who saves the day (and her sister).

This is a great book for growth mindset. When she sets off to do roller derby she finds it's harder than she thought. But she keeps at it and does not give up!

A story of a different kind of hero-the main character goes deaf and her world completely changes. But when her teacher has to wear the microphone connected to her hearing aids-she sometimes forgets to turn it off so she can start hearing her teacher's conversations in the lounge (gasp!) and becomes a class hero. Turning lemons into lemonade.

Do you have any favorite graphic novels?