Graphic novels are more popular than ever before with young readers! They engage the imagination, inspire future artists and are also brilliant for children learning to read or those yet to discover a love of books.

Author/ illustrator Mark Bradley has created a new series of graphic novels just for new readers - Bumble and Snug - the story of two little monsters filled with BIG feelings.

We love the first book which tells the tale of two very angry pirates, learning to navigate the world and manage their feelings. The books are perfect for fans of Mr Men, InvestiGators and Dog Man.

We asked Mark to tell us more about what's so special about graphic novels for kids - check out his guest blog post below.

guest blog by mark bradley

There’s something magical going on in the world of books at the moment – there is a generation of young readers who are falling in love with graphic novels, in a way we’ve never seen before. In speaking with teachers, librarians and bookshop owners, I constantly hear that they struggle to keep up with demand and that sales of them have exploded. But what is it about graphic novels that has made them so popular and should children be encouraged to read them?

It should first be clarified: ‘graphic novel’ is the term for a book-length comic.

When reading this blog post, did you notice how the above image captured your attention, probably more so than the blocks of text? Simply put, comics are an incredibly engaging and effective way of communicating with readers. 

The above is an example of what the image may have looked like had I solely written it in prose. In combining the image and text, you will hopefully infer a greater sense of energy and enthusiasm in the message than I could have hoped to achieve with prose alone. 

And this is why I think comics are brilliant. You can convey so many complex emotions, so much energy and so many stories when you magically combine images and text together.

The above is a scene taken from my book Bumble and Snug and the Angry Pirates. If I was writing this in prose, I would have written ‘Bumble and Snug fly over a street, bustling with little monsters of all shapes and sizes’. But the reader may interpret the word ‘monsters’ in a style more fitting of a horror movie and that, in turn, may have inferred that the street is more ominous and shadowy. Instead, the combination of word and images hopefully gives them a scene that communicates the world better, so the reader can come up with their own stories for the background characters.

The particular alchemy at play in comics is that they require something called ‘multimodal reading’. ‘Multimodal reading’ refers to the way we read a work that uses multiple forms of expression. For comics this means that the audience needs to read the text within a panel, understand the visuals, interpret the spatial layout of panels and then combine all these facets to translate what is being communicated.

In the above panels, I have used the same words and lettering for two different images. So, whilst the words remain the same, the images infer different meanings behind the words – this is an example of how a multimodal text works.

It’s this unique chemistry that makes comics so engaging and exciting! They require the reader to deeply engage with them, sometimes in ways that they may not even be conscious of, as well as utilise a sophisticated set of skills to interpret them.

And research is starting to back up the fact that reading comics is incredibly beneficial for children, showing that comics contain more complex words than even adult prose books and also increase library usage and reading comprehension. In short, it’s why I think that all children should have access to comics and be encouraged to read them. And we are still only in the early days of studying the benefits of reading comics.

If your child is curious about reading graphic novels, or is already a big fan of them, it’s a love I cannot encourage you enough to foster. Like prose, they will discover new worlds in the pages, wonderful new characters and discover things about themselves, all in addition to learning complex new ways of understanding texts.

In summary: graphic novels are amazing!

Thanks to Mark for his brilliant guest blog! To discover more graphic novels for kids, check out our favourites here.