Bug Scouts Camp Out!, a graphic novel bridge for young elementary ages

Little kids want to be big kids. They want to until they have to do the big kid work, and then they’ll revert back to being little kids. Getting elementary school-aged kids to read as soon as possible is integral to their success. Being able to read and comprehend text when you’re younger will only make school easier, less frustrating, and more fun. Everybody likes to have fun, don’t they? Bug Scouts Camp Out! is the second book in this series by Mike Lowery. This graphic novel checks off so many boxes in the pre-k and early elementary school book that a housing inspector would be jealous.

Bug Scouts Camp Out! is a graphic novel. Kids in pre-k through second grade want to read graphic novels. They want to read well enough to dig into Dog Man, but they’re not quite there yet. Bug Scouts is a series that has the art of an elementary school graphic novel, but the package of an early elementary book. Its cover is thick cardboard, so it’s bendable and one that is skinnier than Cat Kid’s friend.

It’s got chapters. Little kids want to be big kids and chapter books are one of the big steps toward getting there. There are five chapters in Camp Out!, each around 13 pages. The number of pages in a chapter can produce bragging rights in some kindergarten circles. That leads to books with more words, less cartoonish fonts, books with very few pictures and so much more.

There are sight words, but not too many of them. The text in Camp Out! is designed around the story and doesn’t exist for sight words to take center stage. That’s ok because if the book were solely about sight words, then it might not have the fun factor that’s needed for kids to really enjoy it.

The fun factor. In order to help little kids become big kids the source material needs to be fun. Granted, with enough time they’ll become big kids physically, but the goal of this is to illustrate their intellectual growth and not their physical prowess. Bug Scouts Camp Out! screams of fun, runs with joy, dares ages four through eight not to read it, makes kids laugh, and has the very rare “shareability’ factor. This is that indefinable term that means that kids will want to share jokes, illustrations or the actual book itself. Look at Josh the spider fall down. Did you see the “no frog” sign that was at their campsite? We told ghost stories like Doug did when we had a campout.

The graphic novel is something that those young ages can relate to. The four friends are goofy and funny, plus they’re insects or a worm. Who couldn’t at least grin over the fact of a worm going camping and trying to talk to a bird? What’s that noise in the forest that’s preventing everyone from falling asleep?

Kids enjoy Mike Lowery’s work. Our elementary school-aged kid had his calendar on the wall last year. Those middle or upper elementary kids know his work from Kid Spy series, The Pursuit of the Pesky Pizza Pirate, the Everything Awesome series or others. His work speaks to kids in a way that’s on level. It jumps into their skin and lets them be themselves, laugh at their age, and aspire to read slightly more challenging text that has a similar vein of silliness. Bug Scouts Camp Out! is one of their first graphic novels. It’s certainly shorter than Dog Man and has a slightly easier text level, but travels with the same energy that’ll make kids smile.

Bug Scouts Camp Out! is a graphic novel by Mike Lowery and is available on Graphix, an imprint of Scholastic.

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