Ladies, are you enjoying your chosen books for our Faith, Fiction, & Fellowship read-along? Faith, Fiction, & Fellowship Discussion, Week 2 If you’ve purchased the official reading guide, you’ll have plenty of questions to help you think about the themes and connections in the books. But to help get the conversation going, here are a couple of week two’s questions that work for any of the books. (Feel free to answer in the comment section! We’re also going to dive into these in the Facebook group for the read-along.) Question 1: The book of Ruth begins with grief and mourning. How do Ruth and Naomi grieve? What are the safety nets…

I’m old enough to remember a time when “comics” were frowned upon as a cheap, inferior form of literature that kids shouldn’t be wasting their time on. Most kids (including me) ignored those frowns, spending hours at the local drug store pawing through the comics rack for Little Lulu and Denis the Menace. These days, after a decades-long struggle for respectability, “graphic novels” are an accepted, even highly-regarded art form. Graphic novels for kids have long outgrown superheroes, Scrooge McDuck and Richie Rich; now they breathe new life into classic stories, explain science concepts, illustrate history, and serve as a gateway into literary fiction like The Giver and A Wrinkle…

Two recent graphic-novel adaptations of classic stories have their strengths, but overall demonstrate the adage, “the book is better.” A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle, adapted and illustrated by Hope Larson.  Farrar Strauss Giroux, 2012, 391 pages. The James Patterson blurb on the back cover praises the “colorful panels” but the first thing a reader notices is that the only actual color is blue.  It’s hard to understand this decision.  With so many pages to produce, color might have seemed too expensive, but any adaptation of a popular classic might be expected to sell itself.  Splashes of color would have been a welcome addition to certain parts of the…

New Kid offers a fresh and funny graphic-novel take on the middle-school blues. Reading Level: Middle grades, ages 8-10 Recommended for: ages 8-14 From Washington Heights to Riverdale Academy is a big leap that Jordan Banks isn’t sure he wants to make. A black kid from a middle-class neighborhood attending a fancy prep? He’d rather just go straight to art school (he’s into drawing, not basketball), but this scholarship came through and his mom is convinced it’s an opportunity too good to pass up. Dad too, though he’s not quite as gung-ho. The first day of school comes with more than the usual jitters: will there be any other students…