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Health & Fitness

Kick Off Summer Reading with "Adventures in Cartooning"!

Orion Library's summer theme is "Dream Big – Read", and if your kid loves to draw, "Adventures in Cartooning" is a dream come true.

Summer Reading kicks off at the Orion Township Public Library on Saturday, June 9 with a huge open house from 11-2. We’ll have a bouncy house, face painting, cotton candy, and of course, tons of great books and materials like we have every day. Our summer theme is “Dream Big – Read”, and if your kid loves to draw, this book is a dream come true. The Center for Cartoon Studies presents: Adventures in Cartooning (how to turn your doodles into comics!) by James Sturm, Andrew Arnold, and Alexis Frederick-Frost is just what the budding cartoonist needs. A knight, a magical elf, and a candy-loving horse are on a quest to defeat a dragon, but the plot is only a part of this book’s charm. With each step in the adventure, we learn a new technique in cartooning. The little boxes around the pictures are called panels, and changing the background in the panels can make it look like the characters inside the panels are traveling. “In comics,” explains the elf, “words are as important as pictures!” so when the knight wants to let the reader know the castle wall is a thousand miles long, he doesn’t have to draw a reaaallly big panel to contain it all, he describes with his words in a speech bubble. In the end when all seems lost, the characters take fate into their own hands, by drawing and writing a new ending that leads to the next great adventure.

Kids will love all the techniques they learn in Adventures in Cartooning. Give your kids plenty of paper and art supplies, and encourage them to create their own comics. Don’t know how to get started? Take a simple story, perhaps a folk tale, or a story your kids have always loved, and rewrite the story in cartoon form. Remember, it’s not about perfect drawing, but in finding a way to express your ideas in pictures and in words. Your kids will be involved in meaningful reading and writing this summer – and enjoying it!

For more ideas to get kids involved in reading, please visit my website: kristenremenar.com and come to the Orion Township Public Library to get all the books and media you need!

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