Reposting review because the book is now available in a Kindle Edition
Summary: The wonderful story with a new comic book feel in honor of its 50th anniversary.
Late every Christmas Eve my wife and I go over to her cousin’s house and we act as elves. We put together all the toys, make sure all of the batteries are in (we cart away all the empty boxes and wrapping because Santa does not buy toys at the store.
As the kids have gotten older there are less complicated things for us to put together and we have more time to talk.
I was talking to my wife’s cousin’s husband and he was saying that over the past year he has rediscovered his love of comic books because of the iPad. With his iPad he now is back to buying all kinds of comic books and rediscovering the joy of the comic in a new form. (Note: Marvel now has an unlimited subscription option for ipad comic books.)
I never got into comics. I just didn’t have a community of friends that read them and so there was no one that shared them with me and my local library did not carry comic books (although I am sure some do.)
I have been paying more attention to factors in children’s reading. Why is it that some kids read and some do not. I am convinced that part of it is the community that they grow up in. If everyone around them reads, then they probably will read as well. One educator interviewed kids at her school that were readers and she found that the kids that were strong readers were closest to the local library and were encouraged to use it. (There is probably a causality problem with her research, but access to books is certainly one influence.)
For all but my first grade year, the local library was either two doors down from my house or immediately across the street from our church where my Dad was pastor (and for four year two doors down and immediately across the street from the church was the same thing.) I checked a lot of books out of the library.
I was always interested in books, but for some of my friends that were not as interested in books, I think different content oriented to what they were more interested in (sport, cars, superheroes, etc.) would have helped. And books oriented toward lower reading levels, but older content levels would help with a lot of people that are slower readers or that have difficulty reading for one reason or another. Graphic novels have a lot of content cues that are not present in text only books.
So I am a fan of the idea of graphic novels even if I don’t read a lot of them. The only real exception was my comic book bible (I think it was this one), which I definitely read more than I would have read if it were not in a comic book format and a comic book version of God’s Smuggler.
So I was interested in the fact that there was a Wrinkle in Time Graphic Novel, but I didn’t really think about buying it until talking on Christmas Eve. Why should I not enjoy a graphic novel. I have read a Wrinkle in Time at least several times (reviewed it in 2011) and it was one of the reason I have been reading so much young adult literature over the past two years.
I was a bit surprised by the actual book. I was expecting a glossy full color thick comic book. Instead it was the size of a regular hardback and it was only two color (shades of blue and black.) The images were more child oriented than I expected (but after I read for a while I think that was a good choice.) I think I have always seen Meg as older than she is in the book. Maybe because I saw her as my age when I was a teen. But she is young, only 13. Calvin is the oldest of the three and he is only 14. If anything Charles Wallace is a bit too old here, because he should be only 5.
(There are a lot of images from the actual book in this book trailer.)
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pyHDvxPggbA]
This not a word for word adaptation. Most of the dialogue is direct, but the descriptions are often told in pictures instead of words. And in several parts I think I actually understood the graphic novel better. (But I have seen the mini-series, listened to the audiobook, read the paperback a couple of times and now read the graphic novel, so this is not a new book to me).
I think this would make a very good version to read aloud to a 7-10 year old. It is not available in kindle or iPad version, so hardcover is the only option. It is very reasonable in price (I paid $12.19 from Amazon) and at 392 pages there is some real heft to the book. It did not take me long to read the book, but speed should not be a measuring factor with graphic novels. This is a books I would highly recommend.
Note: After I was finished I passed on the hardcover book to an 8 year old friend and he has read it at least twice and really liked it.
Wrinkle in Time Graphic Novel Purchase Links: Hardcover, Kindle Edition