Wednesday, September 29, 2010

His meta, my meta, the more meta the bettah

The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales

This must be one of the strangest
kids books ever and what may be
strangest of all, my son really 
likes it. Confusing type sizes and all.
Perhaps Stinky meets the nonsense
standard, and he thinks no one will
ever question him about the content. 
Perhaps he enjoys the familiarity,
since he read it in school and
has a copy at home. Perhaps
the high meta factor with
characters commenting on the
story and the creation of the book
explain its appeal. Maybe he just
likes the (to me) bizarre pictures.
In any case he often chooses to read
it in preference to newer, "better,
more useful, more appealing" 
(only in my opinion obviously) 
books.

The TOON Treasury of Classic Children's Comics

Such as Toon Books' collection
of kids comics. See elsewhere in
the blog for why I and my son like
the titles in the Toon series. 
This massive tome collects 20th
century gems from the familiar
(Dennis the Menace, Little Archie,
Scrooge McDuck) to the almost unknown 
but utterly charming (Sugar and Spike,
the Three Mouseketeers) to the weird.
(curious? check out the book).
Strong picture support, nonsense, meta
references, there's something here for
every child-or so I thought. My four 
year old loved reading this with me. 
My child with autism-not so much. 
Which is why libraries are so great .  .  .
He really liked the originals in this 
series though -
Benny And Penny in The Big No-No (Toon Books)Luke On The Loose (Toon Books)Benny And Penny in Just Pretend
Keep on guessing!
-Spectrum Mom

1 comment:

  1. I love the Toon books! "Stinky" is a personal favorite, although for homage you can't do better than "Luke on the Loose" where several comic celebs make an appearance. If you have found the Toon books to work well with your child on the spectrum, you should let them know--the Toon website posts guest bloggers (I do believe they even pay a teeny sum to the contributor.) Graphic novels as a format need all the advocates they can get, because there are still so many prejudices as to their value as reading material.

    Thanks so much for stopping by my own blog earlier. Glad to meet another Agee fan (and Janeite as well?)

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