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All age comic books for August 22

It’s new comic book day (#NCBD on social media) and what new all age comic books are you reading? If you want to share them on social just tag them with #DaddyMojo too so we can casually look over your shoulder. Over in the podcast we’ll take a deeper look at Peanuts, The Beatles Yellow Submarine, a new graphic novel by Science Comics, two Star Wars books and more. For now though here are three great comic books that will interest readers as young as 5 years old.

Lumberjanes #53

Lumberjanes is one of the go-to all age comic books each month. It’s about a group of girls (The Lumberjanes) as they have fun at summer camp. Mix in some age appropriate monsters, science-fiction, adventure, friendship and more and every issue of this comic book is fabulous. It might appeal to girls more than boys, but that’s simply due to the main characters. As a quality vehicle, this is one of the best comic books for any audience, regardless of who is reading it or how old they are.

Pink Panther Presents the Ant and the Aardvark #1

Our 8 year old loves this series of comic books from American Mythology Productions. It started with The Pink Panther, but their ancillary friends and cartoon mates from back in the day have been getting in on the new audiences too. Ant and the Aardvark is a one-shot issue that will make kids as young at 5 laugh and remind parents about a very funny cartoon. Its humor is not 100% dry, but it’s dryish in the way that Mr. Bean is, except in an ant and aardvark way.

Marvel Super Hero Adventures Inferno, #1

This is all age super hero and its best. Marvel Super Hero Adventures doesn’t dumb down the super heroes. Nor does it give them the Muppet Baby treatment, instead it simply tells action based tales that kids as young at 5 can look at. In this issue Inferno is visiting Spider-Man and Venom is around the corner ready to mess things up in the city. Of course those younger ages won’t be able to read it themselves, but they’ll certainly love the artwork. Ages 7 and up should be able to read the comic book without any assistance from older folks.

Humor

Superhero

Action/science-fiction

Ghoulia-Making Friends Can Be Scary, but this is 100% fun

There was a period where I watched The Nightmare Before Christmas at least twice a week. I found it very coincidental that our 6 year-old started watching it-on his own accord and could sing the songs. Ghoulia, Making Friends Can Be Scary by Barbara Cantini is a spiritual cousin to Christmas, Coraline and Paranorman. It’s an emerging reader’s book that brings an all age appropriate scare and spook to readers aged 6-9.

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Continue reading Ghoulia-Making Friends Can Be Scary, but this is 100% fun

Mixed A Colorful Story is as happy as a children’s illustrated book can get

Mixed A Colorful Story is a great example of a simple children’s book that succeeds beyond the demographics that its aiming for. On the cover there are three colored dots, red, yellow and blue. These are the primary colors as I’m often reminded by our children. A combination of them can create any color on Earth. In Mixed A Colorful Story we see that each color has their default personality. Reds are loud, yellows are bright and blues are the coolest. Everything is great until one day reds start saying that they’re the best. Continue reading Mixed A Colorful Story is as happy as a children’s illustrated book can get

It’s Your First Day of School, Busy Bus! review

Just in time for children who are going into pre-K through second grade, It’s Your First Day of School, Busy Bus!. This is a children’s illustrated book by Jody Jensen, with illustrations by Claire Messer that’ll hit home with the really small children who are over the moon about getting on the big yellow monster.

The big yellow monster, that’s what my mother used to call it. I don’t remember too much about that name, other than she used to say, ‘here come the big yellow monsters’. I can only assume it wasn’t too malicious or required music from The Exorcist in the background because I loved school and education.

To young children the school bus can be a symbol of independence and not being a baby any more. It can also be terrifying. Having walked our kids to the bus stop this past week we’ve seen a couple kids who are in their first year of getting on the bus who did not take too kindly to it. Those kids that don’t want to get on the busy bus are akin to a cat who is being made to take a bath.

It’s Your First Day of School, Busy Bus! is just the sort of pre-K comfort book food that kids who are looking forward to things would benefit from. ‘Looking forward to’ varies from small one to small one. Some small ones look forward to things so much that they irrationally use their young minds to freak out about getting on the busy bus. That’s where the book comes in handy.

It’s soft and beautifully illustrated in organic, old-school manners that will sooth the eyes of small sight readers. The text uses simple, short sentences that focus on how the bus will feel on the first day of school. Not surprisingly the bus is nervous also, but Ben the trusty bus driver puts its nerves at ease.

Much like School’s First Day of School from Adam Rex, It’s Your First Day of School, Busy Bus! is squarely aimed at pre-K through second grade. Those older kids will be able to read it easily, but will still be able to learn lessons on dealing with new, potentially scary situations.

Breakout, mixed results from a middle school book with good intentions

From the cover, Breakout by Kate Messner feels like an epic novel. It’s thick, clocks in at 433 pages and has notations at the end of the book for those that want to read more about the content in Breakout. Breakout takes place in a sleepy mountain town in New York as two inmates have just escaped from a prison. The story is told through the eyes of two seventh-graders in a variety of ways including text messages, cartoons, poems, and letters to the paper, their friends and more. Breakout is loosely based on the real 2015 prison escape from Clinton Correctional Facility. It sees a fictionalized account of how those youth might have imagined the situation as they saw it. Continue reading Breakout, mixed results from a middle school book with good intentions

How to Trick the Tooth Fairy delivers the treats for kids 4-8

How to Trick the Tooth Fairy is a prime example of not judging a book by its cover. If you look at the cover it appears to be a book that is squarely, 100% aimed at girls. It has glitter on it, the tooth fairy and a mischievous looking young girl with a pink comforter and a heart shaped tooth box on the bed. Upon receiving the book I had its chance of winning over our 6YO at 20%. Don’t take me to Vegas because I lost that bet and out 6YO loved How to Trick the Tooth Fairy, laughed out loud and could relate to the antics that the lead character Kayleee puts on.

It’s not that I need our children’s books to have the scent of Steven Segal on them to be immediately appreciated by our youngest. He is in a phase where I’m not sure what type of books will appeal to him. Normally he’s driven by fart jokes, kid friendly aliens or talking animals. In my mind having him like a book about a prankster youth and an even more prankster tooth fairy wasn’t on the radar. Continue reading How to Trick the Tooth Fairy delivers the treats for kids 4-8

Perfectly Norman is just about that in a children’s book

Children are fascinating creatures who are impossible to understand. They have secrets, friendships that are needlessly complex and make small matters seem like mountains that they’ll never be able to overcome. In short, children are just like us, except a couple decades younger and can text faster than you. Perfectly Norman by Tom Percival is a children’s book that perfectly encapsulates an element of what being a kids is like. It’s their belief that nobody is like me. Nobody has this and everybody else is living the life of Riley. Continue reading Perfectly Norman is just about that in a children’s book

Summer, A Pop-Up Book brings home the 3D fun for three and up

As a kid we loved pop-up books. We had one that was King Arthur themed. As you turned each page the castle would raise up, goblets would move to the mouths of thirsty knights and fair maiden’s hair would creep down the castle walls so rescuers could climb them. Yeah, that last one always made me question the legitimacy of the Renaissance too. Thankfully, Summer offers no such questions. Instead it’s a rip fun time that’s consistent with Spring, Fall or Winter, the other books in the series by David A. Carter.

Continue reading Summer, A Pop-Up Book brings home the 3D fun for three and up