Comic Boom - The Comics in Education Podcast with Claire Linney

0:00Hello and welcome to Comic Boom, the Comics and Education podcast. If you're interested in hearing more about the crossover between comics and education then this is the podcast for you. My name is Lucy Starbuck-Radley and each week I'll be joined by a fellow educator and academic, a librarian or a creator of comics to discuss their journey into comics and provide some inspiration to influence your practice and hopefully shed some lights on some titles you can bring into your libraries, classrooms and onto your bookshelves at home too. Today's guest is book influencer and author Claire Lilley. You may have seen her on Instagram. I'm a big fan of Claire's content on there. She's passionate about the need for more stories that highlight people of African descent throughout British history and advocating for diverse representation in children's literature. Her series TimeTub Travelers aims to do just that as well and their brilliant reads and we talk about that today and of course as you would

1:04expect for a guest on comic boom, Claire is a passionate reader of graphic novels. Should we talk in us through her top picks today and also talking about her experiences as a writer and a parent as well. Here's what Claire has to say. Hello Claire, welcome to Comic Boom. Thank you so much for having me. You are very welcome. I always start the podcast by asking guests to tell us a little bit about their personal journey into comics. Everyone's different, discovers them at different age. Whether it's something that you got into as a child or something that you discovered later in life. I dabbled very briefly with comics as a child so my mum who I loved really and she's a legend but wasn't English literary teacher. So it was very keen on me reading the classics like Tess and the Derbyville and less encouraging of me reading comic books. So I think I used to read comic strips like in magazines and newspapers. I think the Sunday Times used to

2:04have a pull out for kids and this is the 80s and this is a long time ago and I think they had little comic strips. Was it the Fundo Times? Fundo Times, yes, Fundo Times. So I remember the Fundo Times and then I used to have Calvin and Hobbs books. That was kind of I loved the Calvin and Hobbs strip but I don't think I wasn't really encouraged to think of them as books like they didn't really there was something else. They were kind of just something for fun like a distraction. No one ever gave me a comic book or a graphic novel that wasn't that wasn't a thing in my childhood. So I think it wasn't until I was probably in my late 20s and it was probably to do with a guy that I was trying to date or fancied and was trying to be cool and bright. I'm sure it came from there. I don't know who but I think I remember I think I got Watchmen graphic novel which is kind of jumping straight in the deep end. That's not you know what that's not easing into it and there's many things wrong with that graphic novel. It's problematic in so many ways but I really loved it.

3:06I was like oh wow this is I think it was the first time I'd sort of seen a whole narrative. Played out in that kind of you know in a comic rather than just like because the Calvin and Hobbes are great but they're they're short yeah a mood strip sort of four panel strips or yeah. Yeah so that was the first thing and so I read all that thing I thought oh this is interesting and I think that kind of that was my gateway and then I think I went to mouse by Artsfieldman which was completely the opposite but that really opened my eyes so I was like oh okay this is just a format it's not like this is just superheroes because I think there's a danger that people look at comics and they're like this is just it's just superhero stuff it's just Marvel it's just DC and I think having gone from Watchmen to mouse I was like oh no this is like historic this is really serious historical fiction a mouse for anyone who doesn't know explores the holocaust it's an amazing piece of work and so I think from now I started to sort of look for kind of similar graphic novels I was never hugely but I was a double here and there so I like I love Brian K.

4:09Vaughan and Fiona Staples I love to paper girls I'm very into saga but then I think when I started reading children's books when I started writing for children about five or six years ago I think I then sort of naturally starts to come across the odd middle grade graphic novel and young adult graphic novel and that's when I got really hurt like really whole shelf spending large amounts of money yeah that's when you know you're in trouble yeah it's not it's not a it's not a cheap habit I will say although I have discovered that the Libya allows you to get graphic novels from the library a new and have a huge collection so when I realized I could read graphic novels for free or my iPad that has been a that has been a game change yeah I completely agree actually and that the because some of the challenges with accessing graphic novels through it in sort of physical copies from the libraries that they're so popular yeah they come straight off the shelf as soon as they're returned it can be can take quite a lot especially if you're trying to read something in sequence or you're

5:11reading a series it's the mission so actually that online access is really really bad for really really helpful my children really enjoy reading comics online I tend to I do like to have a physical copy well I sometimes talk about I use my library card to audition but especially with like a long running series you're like well I don't want to commit and get something so I'll kind of audition it I'll read the first one on the Libya and then if I like it or sometimes I'll just read the whole thing on the Libya and then I'll just be like I'm buying a physical copy anyway but then I need at least I know I'm investing in something I want to keep so yeah I use my library card to audition books and graphic novels excellent idea excellent idea I'm going to talk a little bit about your writing a little bit later on but I've wondered as a parent and have you provided a kind of different environment to the one that you grew up in where comics were sort of slightly set from what impact does that has no like I'm throwing shade on my mom she said it's not easy but like my take my taste in literature times have changed times have changed and my mom

6:12very much gave me kind of classic worthy books and my dad gave me 1970 sci fi great I am the project I'm sort of the combination of that so my son so I like comics have been an absolute game changer in the house so my son is like he's always been good at reading he's he doesn't have any issues he's always he did well in phonics put oh my god phonics books I mean shoot me in the head I know I just I know it's a process and I know the process works but there was one about like planting radishes in the garden and we had to read it about seven times because in each group there's only about seven books and I was like I cannot read and my son I could also like delight dying in his life so I think when we started looking at books to get him to read but also longer books for us to read because I think although there are still picture books that he absolutely loves he started to want longer narratives but the jump from a picture book to even early chapter books is really big even heavily illustrated ones it's quite a big

7:13leap and I think when I started sort of suggesting a couple he just looked quite overwhelmed by them especially in terms of him reading so I started bringing I started getting comics and graphic novels because I think it really helped to bridge that gap between something that was a longer form narrative but was a lot more visual so the storytelling was easier to follow and we've kept up with them because he just loves them and I love reading them but I think they really helped bridge between picture books and chapter books and even him getting him to read so he loves being read too he's a bit more reluctant to read himself his reading is really good he's just late I think it's just laziness and he just likes being read too but we quite often with a graphic novel I'll get him to pick one of the characters so I say right you pick the character that you want to read and then we'll read the whole thing I'll do most of it but he will read that one character so he's still getting some practice yeah yeah and that was a really way of kind of involving him which is you can't really do with a chapter book it's really but with a graphic novel it's really obvious

8:19every time that because sometimes you don't find out who's if well often you don't find out who's saying something till the end obviously you make an in the inference but if you're really allowed when you get it wrong you're like oh that was the wrong voice let's do that yeah American accent yeah yeah yeah it's much clearer in a graphic novel I agree and I think that it's great that although they were introduced as a kind of bridging the gap that you've seen the value in them continuing beyond that they're just part of his kind of reading diet yeah and they're just that is I think it's just they're just another format to enjoy reading from I think there's people feel like it's people like oh but they don't do this and this and I'm not I'm not saying we should only be graphic novels and I'm not saying we should only read books it's like why can't you just bring both in to the reading that you do and I think there's there's also such just joy I love visual storytelling and that's what picture books do it's the visuals and hearts the storytelling that is what graphic novels do the visuals are there to add to the storytelling and my son and I both obsessed with the light full graphic novels by Tim pro about

9:23which I that I just inhale them and then my son wasn't interested and I do this thing sometimes I leave things on the steps outside his room and he was like oh what's that I'm like oh no no no no that's not for you that's also a picture this is this is an old like this is for like at least nine year old so I was just wondering the sex I was like this is too advanced for you so I'm this is only this is mummy's graphic you can't read this and immediately just like I want to read it like you did to me and I was like haha might even find it worked but he just sat there and I read for 45 minutes straight and at the end of it I was thinking this was because the light full is quite a complex fantasy quest I was thinking this I think this has gone over his head like this is complicated and at the end of it I sort of said oh like what do you think is happening and he was just like oh there's this you know there's Kess and he's trying to extinguish all the lights in the world minute and he kind of just summer and I was like oh no you you've entirely got it but I

10:27think that is the power I think if that had been a fantasy book at that level of complexity I think he'd have struggled but there's such powerful visual storytelling in light for and there's sections where whole parts of the story has no text and there's other bits that are really text heavy so I think because of the visual element he was able to get on board with a story that complex in a way that he wouldn't have done if it hadn't been a graphic novel we then read all three books and he was like when's book four coming out and I was like there isn't a publication date and he was just like what what would you mean like what wears because I think at that age he had not encountered the oh no the story we don't know when so when book four came out so yeah that that was a bit of a rude awakening to oh no this the story isn't complete and I don't know when someone's somewhere in a rude dark room drawing away trying to try to make it yeah someone's also he has a sense that I I know other authors so he's like can you not tell me I don't know Tim prober and I don't

11:29get that without yeah it's I think as well we've been spoiled by the kind of model that David Fickling publishing have where they're they've got a very large back catalog of content from the Phoenix that then it's like Bunny versus Monkey was coming out really rapidly because yeah Chumming up comic strips that already exist in had done from 10 years worth of publishing in the Phoenix and yeah I remember not used to waiting for yeah but I think it's good I think because I think this generation so used to yeah they're so used to just being able to binge watch everything yeah I was like actually having to wait a year to find out what happens this is maybe a good valuable life experience yeah because we used to only have you know four TV channels watch trying to tell my children that who couldn't be less interested in how many TV channels you missed it yeah or you had an hour and a Saturday afternoon that was it yeah

12:30you spoke about you being a writer having these contacts from your son's perspective but be really great to hear a little bit about your your kind of dual careers as a both a writer and as an influencer and how they kind of crossover and how they came about I just love to hear about your background I'm sure I've heard listening with as well so yeah it was it's interesting because I have no intention to be a children's author I had no intention to be a book influencer either but I well I was on maternity leave I sort of I started to do a bit of reading into my like identity I think just in my late 30s so I read the brilliant book natives by a Carla I tried to read British by Afiwa Hersch and that had sort of kind of planted this seed that I really didn't know much about black British history I kind of internalized this narrative that black people were enslaved and then arrived with wind rush in 1948 that was kind of what I what I'd sort of taken from my education and everything since then so I ended up reading this book called Black

13:31Tudor's the untold story by Miranda Cal from a non maternity leave I don't know why picks up on maternity leave I was mainly watching Love Island at two o'clock in the morning while stirring night feats I don't know how I went from that to like oh I'm too the really serious historical nonfiction book but I found it absolutely fascinating so it tells the story of different people of African descent who were alive during the Tudor period in England and I had no idea that there were people who looked like me in Tudor times and I think because my son was born I was like so I was sort of was like okay I now I need all the books on Black British history but my son's been born so I think I naturally then started also looking at the children's books that were around and I found some absolutely brilliant ones there still needs to be more I'm sure that there are more books on sharks for kids than there are Black British history really honestly yeah so I kind of I started looking at that but also I didn't like history growing up I really hated school and I didn't really read nonfiction I was very into adventure and sci-fi and fantasy so I started then looking for the kind of historical fantasy historical fiction but it's because I'm

14:33like well there must be loads that are exploring Black British history in different ways and I found maybe five and I remember thinking I don't think that's enough or like I don't think that's good enough so I kind of got this earworm I was like well what if I could explore some of these stories from Black tutors but through time travel because I love Dr. Who and who doesn't want a time machine and also then it's like it's not historical fiction it's time travel yeah so I was like and I think in my head I was like I'm not a historian I can't write a book about I thought writing historical fiction but but if it's time travel that's absolutely fine that made sense stories you told yourself that is the story I needed to tell myself in order to do it um so I kind pretended I wasn't writing it for a long time because I was like I have a career in marketing I've just become a mum this is a bad time and COVID had just hit as well I was like this is a very bad time to start deciding to do a very time consuming side hustle as a children's author but I ended up writing it and then worked on it on and off over the years and but I started to give it to friends who

15:38had kids that age I'd given it to a few primary school teachers and I'd got some really good feedback so I was like okay well I don't think my writing's terrible there's something here but I went out to query with it and just had a massive wall of silence for 18 months it was literally just like screaming into a void um so I was kind of feeling very dejected but I had a chat with a friend of a friend who was a self-published author and I think it was like a light bulb went off I think I've been I've been waiting for permission for someone to give me permission to be an author and I suddenly realised I could give myself permission and I think because I felt like there was a reason for these books to exist I'm like there are not enough books on black British history there are not enough fictional books on black British history and there were no kind of non-historical fiction books that like time travel kind of looking at it from a different angle so I was like okay well there's I think that just sort of kept me going um so the first book time to have traversed the came out in 2004 and I think when I knew I was going to self-publish I realised that no one was

16:41going to care or know apart from friends and family that I published a book so I don't have that marketing machine around you that you might I mean it's quite huge which books are marketed and which books aren't with the indraditional publishing isn't it but it at least you think you know you think there's some kind of machine that there that might that might do that for at least distribution or there's something to help you and I thought no one is going to know so you know with I do marketing is it that's been my job for so 25 years so I thought well I should start on Instagram and TikTok and try and build up some kind of awareness if who I am and because I've been reading so many amazing kids books since I started deciding to write for kids and absolutely fall in love with middle grade books plus I'd read all these books on black British history I was like will it make sense for me to start sharing those books because people who be interested in those books will be potentially interested in buying mine so that's literally how it started I was like I'll start sharing reviews of all these amazing children's books and they were largely

17:42all written by diverse authors of a black office brown office like all the representation I didn't see growing up that's what I gravitated to so that's kind of how it started and then six months after building up I mean it took I think it took me so long to get to 200 followers like that was that was the hardest thing going from zero to 200 felt like it was taking forever it kind of the bigger you get the easier it is to grow in some ways and I'd also then made not friends but kind of got to know a lot of the other kids books to grammars because I sort of been following them and engaging with them and I've been invited to a middle grade book club that one of them ran online so I think when my book came out when I then sort of message people have said would you like a review copy they all kind of knew who I was it wasn't like a cold call like I had I had built relationships and that's so important so I was really lucky that I had a lot of people that really were really supportive from the get go and yeah things are just grown from there and the

18:42third book in the series is coming out in October amazing have you ever thought about making them into a graphic novel I would love to but I am terrible at drawing there's other people available he could do that drawing if anyone if anyone was motivated to oh my god I would love it I would absolutely I think it really doesn't itself actually like I think it would be brilliant and I can already see what the time travel vortex would look like I think also I'm a big fan of I quite like reading graphic novel adaptations of existing stories so for example there's a really great one of Norton Crosses by Mallory Black. Yeah that's really great I'm a big fan of Octavia Butler she's like one of my favorite spectrature fiction authors who writes some books like Kindred and Parable of the Sores but there's a duo so there's a graphic artist John Jennings and I think it's Damien Duffy who does the adaptation but they have turned a lot of her biggest books into graphic novels and it's

19:43really interesting because her books are quite like they're tough subject matter but Parable of the Sores is dystopian tale of American society collapsing and it's in some ways more brutal to read the graphic novel because you're visually seeing the horror is depicted but less in other ways so yeah I it's just it gives a different lens to the story so I'm always really fascinated with the graphic novel adaptations of books I already really know so yeah I would love I would love time top tablets to be great. It would be great to just unbig a little bit about you know where we're at in your view with the diversity representation within comics that we've obviously seen a really big boom in comics and graphic novel publication over the last few years there's a lot more titles available what is your reflection on the diversity within that all like I have some I have some

20:43reflections shall add to the conversation as well I judge some book awards and things like that and so I'm see see a lot of titles that are submitted and I would just interested in what you think in terms of the breadth. So I think it's I think it's very much a reflection of just the broader industry so representation has been has improved in children's books it's nowhere near where it needs to be and there's certainly the statistics suggest that a lot of sticking classes and plasters were put in place in 2020 after George Floyd but nothing structurally changed so things have kind of slid backwards and I was I think it's almost we're at the point where there's been a couple of years where people felt the need to be seen to be doing something and my concern is I'm not sure they feel the same need to even be seen to be doing something anymore so things are there is an external driver because of the political climate at the moment it's making things worse so I think and I so my reflection is when I've gone out trying to find graphic novels and comics

21:44by black illustrators by brown illustrators I struggle I think particularly as well with black British like they're in black is it's very strong yeah I was literally like I was trying to find I think I was trying to find a graphic novel 14 ages from a black British illustrator and I thought I found one she lives in the UK but she's British and I was like but I love her graphic novel but I really really struggle so what that tells me is that and I think the world of comics even when I look at some of the adult comics that I read it's been historically a very white male arena and I think if it's bad in children's books I think it's sort of magnified in comics and I think just generally I think illustrators of color have struggled to get the same opportunities whether it's illustrating books or whether it's as graphic novelist or artist so when I find books I sort of really cling on to them I'm like this but then it ends up in every single recommendation poll because

22:46I just don't have that many so you know I choose from yeah and I look for a lot of queer graphic novels as well and graphic novels from any traditionally marginalized voice but certainly in terms of like black and brown graphic novel artists oh yeah I really struggle I find some great ones but they're not nearly enough and I think especially with kids books there are a lot of historical properties that are really big which is great but they do tend to dominate when a series of book or a character becomes a brand rather than yeah yeah so I think and then that sort of gets a lot of the shelf space and I think because there's not a huge amount of shelf space in bookshops currently given to graphic novels I think it's improving yeah it's much better in the States there's just it's a much bigger selection in the States than I think the market's a bit more developed so you there's room for more diversity just because there's more room so I think the danger is if you've just got one small shelf in a smaller bookshop they're going to put the biggest selling long running titles on

23:50that and that means even when you do get great graphic novels by artists of color they just they don't tend to get a look in they have to be actively looking for them you have to yeah you have to work to find and that's and people don't want to cook time and effort into finding stuff they have lies and things and that's partly why I think what I do on social media is so important because I love championing diverse author books and I want to make it just easy for people to find stuff and easy people say yeah that my son will love that my daughter will enjoy that so if I can just if I can take the friction out of it then I think hopefully that is getting the right books into more hands yeah I think as well they can sometimes be a perception that a black or brown character in the book is there for people who are black or brown to identify with whereas actually our identities are more complex than that and there's of course you can identify with characters you know so if I yeah the reflection not an illustrated book but not a comic but that my son was really interested to read was the harry kumar series because the character is autistic ADHD and he's

24:53autistic an ADHD and he and then but come across a character oh and he really identified really strongly with that character and learn things that he had no idea about about what Bollywood was about he never got across before so it's a really rich experience that he could both identify with a character and learn something new that was that outside of his experience and his immediate surrounding culture it's so valuable absolutely and also most and also people people don't say that oh well my kids not going to identify with that because they don't have superpowers then it have laser eyes exactly said no parent well they're not talking bear well they're not talking bear with an odd bunny I mean my son's my son's very into Neil Cameron's donut squad which I don't enjoy as much as mega robot bros although I have become rather fun to have saying oh oh jammy boy just any of my two favorite one oh oh but my son's not a donut he's never going to be a donut he has a uniquely non-donut lifestyle Neil was not willing to answer my question about

25:55which don't he most identified with you through the line oh I've never met him but now I'm I'm not gonna have a say I mean I the whole mum the mum and dad donut and little to me and it's just the the parent relationship dynamic between the mum and dad that is my favorite thing in the whole universe at the moment I'm just like living living for mum not and dad not um but yeah I think I know it I think to go right to your other point I think you're completely right and I think because I think there's there are universal things that kids are always going to connect with and then there are mirrors also windows rather into worlds and experiences they don't know I think also there's this danger and actually Ramsey who's a brilliant author and illustrator talks about this a lot that characters of color when they turn up are supposed to be learning opportunities they're supposed you know they're only there to explain the trauma of their lives or to learn some you know really valuable and very worthy lesson and and there's a lot of those stories that are

26:56very important but also they should just be allowed to have fun and be silly and be unlikable and be a bit extra they don't have to be there and signal worthiness in some way or do you know what I mean and I think there's a danger that when publishers are looking to commission stories like that they're like oh okay when I know this is like this is a South Asian story so there must be something about the struggle of being South Asian and Britain or the struggle of racism or being and it's like that doesn't always have to be the only story that people of color are allowed to tell especially when it comes to comics yeah 100% other reflections that I have there are more talking food items and more heavily animal based stories than the comics that picture real lives and just children's every experience is or fantasy genre of featuring humans of all different types that that that that is still a very cylinder section of what you're able to find and that's not to say that those books I don't individually have merit but if you're looking across the whole industry

27:56about what's available it's not in the mark yeah yeah yeah I'm ever optimistic but I do think yeah I do think things need to change and the problem is it's it's not I think what frustrates me slightly with the industry is they need to do more work that like they need to go out and work at how they're finding these illustrators and nurturing and supporting their careers you can't just put oh we're willing to receive more applications from diverse voices on your website and they on all the agents and they do they say oh put hashtag diverse voices in your query and I'm like guys that's not gonna cut it yeah you don't you don't move the needle by platitudes you actually need to go and do some structural work and work out why people are not having careers where they're not getting into the industry and why they're not getting supported and platform yeah definitely shall we do the thing of making it easier for people to have fun some really good examples of comics and graphic novels that might be a little interest to them I'm super interested

29:01to what you're gonna come up with to share with us so should we do a age range and start with kind of younger readers yes so definitely the prevalence of animals and cutesy things in the younger section so I've I've tried to go for at least one example that isn't animals and actually I will say this age group select five for seven years is the one that I struggle the most to find good diverse representation and and that's for chapter books actually as well as graphic novels it just seems to be this age group better in picture books better middle grade books and then it knows drives in this area but my favorite at the moment is supernova by Shonte Timothy I would love Shonte Timothy to come on the podcast need to try and learn to speak definitely ask her she's absolutely but this this also this book is very special to me I think because I was a black girl scientist I did biology at university so this is all about Nova who is Nova's quiet she's very like I love how confident she is and she's a little bit extra she has a secret science lab

30:03in her house and she realizes that there's a plastic pollution issue because she's watching something with her older sister who she absolutely hates and she decides that she can solve the world's plastic crisis so she goes and invents in a kind of Frankenstein way this little kind of cute pink monster called chomp and chomp eats plastic but chomp eats all plastic and chomp doesn't listen to supernova and kind of gets out of control and grows and nearly demolishes the entire city and I also like she doesn't really get into that much trouble for like nearly demolishing the entire city her parents are like we've had it was the ambition that counts which is great I love that for Nova so there's some really nice messages about kind of the plastic issue how you solve what the issue is but then it's you know you've got this kind of great black girl scientist at the heart with these crazy inventions and this creation of hers it just gets completely out of control the nillion highlights everything so there's something a bit anarchist about supernova but I really love it it was it's been really good for my son and actually this is it's also quite special to me so my my son never volunteers to read usually I'm like okay no

31:07Louis we need to practice your reading now and I said to him we were going to bed at a spare couple of weeks ago I said oh what book do you want me to read you and he said I'm going to read to you tonight mommy and I was like who are you and what have you done with my son and he got supernova out and he read the whole thing covered to cover including the blurb on the back including the acknowledgments and the instructions for how you draw trauma at the end like he was like I'm reading every word in this book but even there's a bit where she's got the sound effects going no no no no it's written like I don't know 50 times in the background of one of the images he read every single no that's dedication I said the video to Chantelle I was just like I just thought you'd like to appreciate my son is really committed to reading every word you made the name of it put it on there he's going to read it yeah but it's it's a really fun story I'm really excited that there's going to be a second one yeah in the summer I think in a third one next year so yeah I have a series as well and it's not just sort of just a one-off

32:08it's gonna you know the character gets sustained you know new new new adventures it's just great to sing that exactly so yeah so supernova's been a big favor in my house and I think I think I I mean Shanta I keep telling her she's she's she's winning awards with this book like I think because kids are just responding so well to it so yeah I think it's an absolute and I really love that my son loves the character of Nova he's a boy she's a girl I think there's too much obsession with kids having to only identify with their gender leading books but yeah he absolutely loves supernova is brilliant so the this one is this is animal based so this is blue barium pancakes so good which I really love and this this is really great for younger readers because the writings in lowercase which actually that can be a challenge with graphic novels it's actually quite hard to find the lowercase writing kids find it harder to read initially so actually the fact this is in lowercase there's loads of sound effects in this it's basically about a giant bunny called pancake a slightly neurotic worm called blue and a very over organized frog called

33:15on adventures which are usually just very ridiculous I feel like it channels for me Saturday morning cartoon energy of the 90s it's got it's kind of it's a road runner whining yeah exactly manicness I feel like it's sometimes in the category for younger readers and because you need to keep things simple to for them to be able to follow the sort of flow of panels sometimes it can be very repetitive but I think it does interesting things yeah with the comic nestle bit like it uses comics in a interesting way there's really funny things where like a screen carries on over like multiple panels yeah but just it's funny and it's engaging yeah and I just I I think we've read it's it's what it's a testament to when you read a book over and over and over and over and over again with your child if you're still like you will as an adult you're still getting stuff yeah yeah you're not rolling your eyes and going do we really have to read this again um

34:15whereas like always like when my son was like get me re blue barring pancakes I'm like I'm 100 percent here there's also quite there's I think it's the maybe the third one which is they go to a balloon planet which is sort of been created by pancake there's a whole mess of thing about how you create a planet that you have to travel to I don't really entirely understand he's created this whole being of people and I sort of I feel there's a backstory to be explored to how pancake the giant bunny created alone yeah but the end it says can you find all these tiny balloon animals so we've gone back through the pages to find and there's one we cannot find I'm convinced it's not even in there I like I actually I spent like half an hour in my like having a coffee at lunchtime being like I'm going to find this balloon animal I can't find it it's driving me mad that's a challenge and who wrote it I need I need I need to do them and go guys just tell me where the sound of my mind yeah yeah yeah yeah so blue barring and I think that's about

35:16to find out I think they they've all come out in the US so I think they're bringing them out quite rapidly so yeah it's a really fun series and I've gifted this to quite a lot of my sons friends as well for birthdays because it's not one that's widely known I don't think it's yeah but it's no but it's you know it love it it's so fun my next one is maybe a tad old for this age group but I did read it to my son when he was six is one of the weirdest comics I have ever come across and that is squid happens the adventures of team pom I love that book so I found this in the library a couple of years ago it's like I'm like I'm like I'm like yeah it's it's it's gonna sound weird so you've got three three girls you kind of meet and bond and form a synchronized swimming team which is quite it's quite an interpretive synchronized swimming team but they aren't really getting a look in because their approach to synchronized swimming is a little random but then you also got it's Kamelgard there's a group of kids that are part of the peanut butter mafia I think it is

36:21something to do with that and then basically you've got this evil mouse and his my why don't it is the oh I can't remember the main guise amount but they've got this mice henchman which are on a mission to retrieve something for their evil boss but a squid that they need for an ingredient for this is anti-aging beauty cream anyway the squid goes missing the squid ends up being found by the three girls and is co-opted into their synchronized swimming team whilst these two mice henchmen it's it's just really really weird but I have to and there's a sequel it's one of the most wonderful things but it has a really distinct art style as well that's quite retro yeah which is really interesting and also maybe that's sort of part of why I feel like it might be borderline on that age because I think it's a good one to share with younger readers yeah I think because it's just I think young kids do enjoy things that are just a bit weird yeah especially yeah if you've got a child that sort of delights in the absurd as well yes then they will love teen porn yeah yeah it would happen and this is an adult just so much to enjoy yeah in that

37:26so we go to middle grade readers yes to my new obsession for this age group is Ramsey and Claud T's Rex Power Theory of the Invasion world this is new to me and I know Ramsey's work but I don't know I'm gonna write it down so I think Ramsey wrote this I think Claude T.C. is the illustrator so this is I took this away on a weekend and I was going to read this on the train and my summer's reading something else and he sort of looked over the seats he was like what are you reading I was like nothing anyway I read this book to him four times I think over the weekend it's about a kid called Corey who basically I think we're in adopted Somali family so he is trying to say for the doctor brother from being bullied one evening so steps in to save him and then accidentally gets in the way of an alien bounty hunter takedown so this kind of evolved alien bounty hunter T Rex type figure is trying to take down an evil villain called Zordax Corey interrupts it there's a terrible

38:29blast and he ends up having the T Rex's consciousness fused into his mind so he's now got T Rex alien bounty hunter living in his brain but can also kind of morph into his body there's some complicated science going on but meanwhile Zordax has escaped and has basically made Catford in South London his headquarters and is using these bugs to kind of create fear and take over the world from Catford and so Corey has to sort of make peace with this Rex Tyrannosaur bounty hunter in his head and takes Zordax down and it's just brilliant there's some really amazing kind of spreads in here like there's a lot of just weird alien bug stuff but there's also I think so there's loads of like fun sci-fi adventure and you know evil bugs taking over the world but there's also a joke about avocados and gentrification that I just nearly wet myself that I've never seen avocados using such a brilliant way in literature ever but also there's this really lovely relationship

39:33between Corey and his adopted brother so Corey's like worried that his family don't want his foster family don't want him he sort of misinterpret something and it's his foster brother that sort of makes him realize that no he is loved and they do want him in the family so there's this really tenderness as well yeah there's this really gorgeous brother dynamic at the heart of it but it is it's just huge amounts of fun so I'm really hoping there'll be more Rex power because I yeah I just I am yeah hold on that sounds brilliant I love it it's not the kind of illustration style I generally go for but I really really loved it what is the kind of illustration style that you generally gave that like watercolors subtlety I quite like black and white I really like the sort of slightly vintage matte style of squid happens that tends to be more what I'm drawn just a kind of simplicity and I really love kind of big panels that sort of take it in so I don't usually go for the very busy there's lots happening there's loads of action but it may be just because I hadn't found it in the right story because I think that kind of busy action eyes drawn everywhere is very much Rex power

40:35and I really liked it in that perfect novel amazing what else have you got for us I also this is for slightly slightly older middle grade readers so maybe yeah we put middle graders eight eight to 12 so this is Squire so this is my Sarah Alphagy and Nadia Shammer so I think it's a Jordan American Sarah Alphagy has been a guest on the podcast before oh amazing I will listen to that back and then Nadia Shammer so I think it's a Palestinian American but I really I loved Squire it's about a girl who's it's a fantasy it's a girl who's in a kind of a tribe a group that is Minora's ties and ostracized in her world but she longs to join the knights who are kind of the heroes of the realm and she really wants to be a Squire so she kind of enlist to train as a knight only to realize the the world is very different to she imagined and the role of the knight is very different so it's kind of about colonialism and power and indoctrination and this one girl's kind of fight against it but yeah yeah I really loved this it's it's a big it's a big chunky graphic novel

41:40but you kind of just get so immersed into this world it's really beautifully done. It's a really immersive world and the and the kind of the landscape and the tells the go into the creation of that world but that just it all just fits and you're just lost within the world I think when you're reading it yeah I think it's gorgeous. Yeah so I think Squire is especially for fantasy lovers I think if you've got a case that enjoy fantasy I think yeah Squire Squire is amazing and then I think my final one is there's so many I'm very obsessed with two artists called Jez and Sin Wimbawa so they are I don't know which country they live in but they wrote a beautiful graphic novel called Luna Boy stunning they're also the illustrators of a really other great one by Tony Weaver Jr. called Weirdo which was a recommendation from the US but it's quite easy to get here so I would recommend that but Luna Boy is about a boy who's born on the moon and his mother sort of

42:45finds him on the moon adopts him and they live in a space station but then they kind of move back to Indonesia and so it's about how he copes and he's also trans how he copes with settling into this kind of blended family so there's a lot about the Indonesian language and heritage and coming of age and the clash of different cultures but also him he sort of feels like the moon is talking to him and calling him back to the moon and it's like does he feel like he fits in enough with his blend as family and on earth or does he feel like he has to go back and live in isolation on the moon so it's just this really beautiful story of kind of identity and belonging in this sort of sci-fiance the color palette is very kind of pinks and purples and blues and creams almost sort of a lunar esk element so it's I quite like graphic novels that don't just use the whole color palette that like we're taking this palette of colors and we're using colors in a very specific way to

43:46highlight different elements of the story so yeah Luna Boy is one of my favorite graphic novels I think it's just stunning but I think as an illustrator duo they do really beautiful work great I'm definitely gonna get a hold of that and you've already did you tilly warden comics no I don't think so I would say it probably thought of as being a creator for adults but I think YA as well makes really beautiful crosses over like a lot of fantasy kind of elements in a lot of exploration of LGBT identity there's this like one I think one of my favorite comics of all time is to love this part and it's about this kind of version in relationship between two teenage girls and in it it's a metaphor for how in that they're massive they're giant they're like they're it's just this they're two interactions and they're always like as big as the buildings around them they're drawn as being very large in the landscapes and it's almost like this kind of

44:47metaphor for the cut early days of a relationship with each other and you're like yeah it is stunning and from the things that you've said that you like I think that you really it's one of my favorite comics creators and they also I like the fact because I think I tend to binge graphic novels in one sitting usually they never stay on my shelf for very long like what's like other books I will buy in that I'll be like that's been there for two years and I've still not read it but graphic novels always yeah always get read so team ones I've got so one of my favorite illustrators at the moment is Lee Knox Ostertag who I am just obsessed with his work I just it's a lot of exploration of gender identity but his first book was his first book was The Girl From The Sea I love that but which is just it's about a girl kind of falling in love with another girl but she's a selky from the sea so there's environmental messages in it but I mean the cover sort of got this it's a Greek like a tuck wavy green and pink and there's something the I don't know the way color is used in here it's quite aquatic a lot of the time and and there's

45:53some really I love the way that there are text messages between the girl friendship groups so it's very it's a very good book for teens it's not like young adults for actually adults it's like it's proper young adult for teens it's all about yeah that kind of friendship groups not wanting to stand out worrying what people are going to think about you but also meeting someone that kind of makes gives you butterflies in your stomach for the first time but I really the the girl with sea is sort of really charming and really beautiful and then at the other end there's an amazing graphic novel he's done called The Deep Dark which is so it's about mags who is living with her grandmother and there's some kind of family secret that you there's she ends up having to go down to the basement every night and she comes back up and her hand is bandaged and you don't know why but it's something that is tethering her to her house so stopping her from being able to move on she's sort of having sex with the girl who's sort of dating one of the guys in school and keeping it a secret so there's just a lot of kind of hiding things and hidden secrets happening and then a kind of a blast from the past a girl that she knew growing up turns up and kind of

46:57sort of blows things open and brings her and brings the secret that is biting her that is in the basement out into the light and it's really it's it's a very dark fantasy novel but it's stunning and again the color palette really reflects that it's what you know it's the opposite of the girl with the sea it's a lot of dark rich colors but I just adored it so I think anything by Lee not socks to tag I'm just like yeah yeah yeah absolutely a separate shout I was going to pick out as well for maybe the upper end of middle grade possibly younger unicorn boy Dave Rowland oh I love we've just got the second I love unicorn boy it's so good because I just it it's got that it's not issues based representation it's a fantasy book it's a comedy book it's you know classic but there's an ordinary character that's the there just living their life quite happily yeah and the late Harry and I love that the boy is like a unicorn and he has pink hair like my son

48:00definitely like loves wearing pink t-shirts but stop because he felt like kids were saying we girls wear pink so I think there's a lot of kind of playing with gender conventions in unicorn boy plus as a talking muffin yeah just comes out nowhere and as hilarious yeah and then the cats have a whole thing and then basically there's they go into the underworld it's yeah it's a very again there's a wonderful weirdness about unicorn boy the second one especially is about a unicorn slumber party I had to pull out a lot of Scottish accents because basically set in Scotland got a shaxon so I was like I am struggling with one I'm not sure I want I used to be a teacher and I once I actually had to stop reading a book but to the class because I was like I didn't realize that they voted for it and it was like completely I can't I got guys guys I can't actually do this this is you're being traumatized I'm being traumatized let's just maybe we'll get the audio book and listen to somebody who actually can't do what's come to shaxon and we would just leave it there leave it to me wrong oh yeah no unicorn boy I think unicorn boy is good for younger but I mean

49:06based on my son's really enjoyed it yeah seven so actually I think I think it's got good broad appeal I think I think younger teens was still gets that's a dry set of a humor in it which I think sometimes a younger reader might miss but you still get the humor from the more obvious plot point humorous plot boys yeah yeah yeah exactly yeah absolutely so I'm looking at my shell because there's so yeah there's so many I think I probably have slightly more actually young adult I'm a book but I'm I'm a big fan of Vex I think it glendine englandine I'm not sure how you pronounce her surname and so she is a black queer illustrator who certainly lives in London she's also was involved in a graphic novel called brooms which I am obsessed with let me just get the hang on I'm not getting the pencil again right in that one down brooms so brooms is by jasmine walls and t.o. do vow and this is set it's a magic story set in 1930s mississippi

50:08where basically people of color who have magical powers are sort of ostracized and put in boarding school so they can essentially be controlled so this it's kind of allegorical but there's indigenous representation here there's black representation here there's queer representation in here one of the characters speaks in sign language but it's done just effortlessly and essentially the get out all the the one option to escape being controlled for two of the young black girls learning magic is to join a magical broom racing team so there are illegal broom races that happen under the radar of the authorities so you got then there's loads of others kind of stuff going on but then you've got these kind of broom races it would be sort of a magic and how that would look on the page that'll be really cool so yeah so it's quite the illustration style is really paired back but it's yeah it's absolutely amazing and yeah I just everything about this I was like but I think back splendid I mean did the lettering I think maybe for it and then that ended up

51:12leading me to for someone recommended on starlet shores which is her graphic novel and this is just really beautiful it so you've got the main character in here Alex goes back to this town called indoharba to basically go through her grandmother's belonging so her grandmother who she really loved has just died and she's kind of having to return to her childhood home but indoharba is a magical place but Alex doesn't realize it's a magical place and there's things about her grandmother's past that kind of starts surfacing up that she she has to deal with but also things in the town are getting strange and there are falling stars there's sort of witches running into t-shops and there's woman's name Elizabeth that comes up again and again who she's trying to uncover what that person's relationship was to her grandmother so it's sort of about how you how you process grief how you deal with losing someone you loved but also then how you react to finding out things about them that you never knew so there's a lot of sort of using kind of very monocleic it's very kind

52:15of purples and burgundy and pink it's almost quite dreamlike but it's it's a really beautiful story and I very rarely see people talk about it yeah it's not one that's come up for me before so that's really exciting to discover some new things from this conversation as well yeah no it's been absolutely lovely I love talking about graphic novels and comics and yeah I rarely get to do so with someone who reads as many as I do if not more so we'll usually end the podcast to just pull out a takeaway or something to think about a kind of actionable point that people could to take away obviously there's quite a clear actual point I think from this which is that if you heard some books that you weren't familiar with today go out and find them did you have anything more broadly that you would like to say to the listeners yeah I think it's I think I've got three things that I think are my sort of bug bears when it comes to comics I think don't treat comics as a genre it's like it's a format so just like books can span everything from talking animals to really complex explorations of history I think comics can do the same so I think if you think about them

53:20like that that they are just the format and it's about exploring the breadth and depth of them I think that's really key I think there can be really great for kids that maybe struggle to engage with books or struggle with reading or in that kind of transition period I think visual storytelling is really underrated in terms of how that can enhance reading and reading for pleasure and I think that comics have this ability I think look at their ability to inspire creativity because that's what I noticed with my son is when he's read a comic book or graphic novel he will start drawing something from it afterwards and that doesn't happen so much with chapter books or text based for you agree that's something that I love talking about I'm really interested in thinking about visual literacy from a creative side as well when we're looking at visual texts we are we are being communicated with we have an emotional response and we're taking on information but we're also learning about creating images and how to communicate through the image and there's an outside of it as well that happens so naturally often with children who are engaging with comics

54:24that it's it's a real also as much as it's a gateway into reading often it's also a gateway into writing for pleasure and storytelling yeah absolutely I think just because it's visual doesn't mean it's not valuable in the same way and it's one of the things actually I started doing when I go in so one of the things I do with schools is I will do a little many workshop on kind of so I'm just creating a blueprint for a time travel idea but in order to make it more accessible because I noticed there were some kids who for various reasons might be struggling with writing or understanding I will literally say to the kids I'm like you can write this however you want you can do bullet points you can write sentences or you can draw it like I was like I don't care how you put your ideas together that's totally up to you and so you will get a lot of kids who will just start drawing the ideas and that way the storytelling just becomes or and then some kids will write their ideas and then if they have time then they'll start illustrating them but it's been really interesting giving them that permission to say actually this is great this is a creative session this is not about whatever learning objective you'll teach you they have

55:29that's very important so if you want to draw your ideas draw them yeah you want to do both do both and really I mean you can see that you think about how we start how we start communicating on paper actually drawing is often one of the first things that happen if you talk to very young children about their drawings they're normally is something happening like they're not just trying to represent there is a story behind it like this isn't that there's it's not just a person that somebody they they know who it is and what they're doing and where they've just been and what something and it also evolves like and then there's this over here and that's and now I'm changing what most pictures about because it's kind of it evolves as they add more things to it this they kind of piece together a narrative and that's what we see like children doing in the early years and it's I feel like we should encourage that more to continue yeah it's sort of shut it's like a shut down it sort of all becomes about sentences and format and grammar and getting your adverbs in there and it's like and I know that's it I know that's important it's foundational but I feel like there could

56:29be more space for just the creativity parts and exploring how you express things visually as well because I think that yeah it just unlocks something different for kids absolutely I've been doing some I do run training called the Big Picture which is all about visual literacy for teachers not just to live it yesterday we just talk about this very thing about how to keep the door open for for image and words going together for communication and also for this kind of trans-media where children and people want to take characters or scenarios from things that in the culture around them like with that be films books comics and then bring them into their story telling which we often don't leave much space for but it's actually a really normal response to processing the culture that you're surrounded by yeah I'm gonna take this character the unicorn boy is now doing something else and it's a story that I've got I've got control of him in this world that I've created with that it's about fiction and I think exactly it's important to be a lot to

57:31yeah because it's you know that's that's a whole industry so yeah exactly the final final final thing that we do on the podcast is if we were to add one book so you've come up I had lots of recommendations today but if we were to just add one book to our 2B red piles what would you recommend yeah I'm gonna say Luna Boy Luna Boy Boy Jazz and Sen Wimbawa I just think it's the most beautiful graphic novel and the most wonderful story and yeah and I'm just gonna stop looking at my shelf otherwise I'll say more things but yeah I'm gonna suggest one which I'm reading at the moment which is a bit bit different because it has got comics in it which is making nonfiction comics the book's called and it is by Ellery Harris and Sarah Mert and it is so good it's a step-by-step kind of guide there's lots of different interviews with different non-fiction comic creators talks about comic journalism talk about how to do an interview how to keep track of your sources

58:34how to challenge biases how to ensure you're getting a you know that you're telling untold stories in your comics and it's just a really it's really cool it's making me think it's one of those now I think I'm gonna be a nonfiction commentator after 10 to 20 pages like yeah oh this is my new identity thank you for the way but it's just so inspiring I mean yeah if I can actually learn how to draw my poem is I'm very good at I can replicate things but I'm not I can't originate my son is much better at originating so I may just train him up in 10 years time who can be your yeah you can do all of your adaptations for you that sounds great but it's been absolutely brilliant to talk to you today thank you so much for coming in the podcast oh thank you for having me it's been such a pleasure thank you they have it what a great guest and what a strong list of recommendations some of them I knew and was a really big fan of already some of them completely new to me and I'm definitely going to go and check those out really really interesting

59:39wide range of titles there for us to explore the first thing that caught my eye on Claire's Instagram feed was her recommending and just going into great detail about how great Neil Cameron's Mega Robo Bros series is and I knew from that moment on that we were going to get on like a house on fire because it's unbeatable such a great series my recommendation for today I've already given some in the episode but I'm also gonna flag a new one that came across my path this year unfairies by Hugh Aaron it's funny great characters really engaging storyline and an interesting approach to artwork I always kind of led by the artwork and it's more of a kind of watercolour and sketchy approach to artwork which you don't necessarily always see in children's graphic novel category and just really witty and engaging Hugh Aaron is a great writer lots of really funny engaging picture books from him as well so check that out a Welsh author illustrator someone worth exploring a little bit more and other news on new books new books on the block you may have

1:00:40also seen as well if you're following on social media comic boom comic underscore boom underscore podcast that Helen Jones and I have a book out together called comics in the classroom published by Routledge is now out and available to purchase and it is all about using comics in the classroom from primary age right up to you to key stage three lots of practical advice lots of recommended titles research based the evidence base for why they can really improve outcomes in your classroom to start working with comics there are things in there that you might not expect like a section on sustainability how we approached exploring themes of the environment through comics thinking through comics we've got specific chapters on the importance of diversity when exploring comics and also accessibility in comics as well and some of the challenges picked out in those as well not just all the benefits but some limitations some of the things that need to be improved so I really practical guide for educators librarians and teachers will all find things something of interest

1:01:42there worth checking out but I would say that but if you listen to this podcast definitely check that book out you should be able to get it from your library as well as from your local bookshop that's comics in the classroom by Lucy starboard Bradley and Helen Jones that's it for us today you've been listening to comic boom which is hosted and produced by me Lucy starboard Bradley thanks for listening