DCML Digest, Vol 28, Issue 13

[Donald D. Markstein]

> Longtime Scrooge fan, first post here ... forgive me if it's out of place.
>
>My son, age 2 1/2, is very interested in some of my old Uncle
>Scrooge comics. Unfortunately, they are a bit too long and
>challenging for him. Are there any Uncle Scrooge (or Donald
>Duck, or Huey/Dewey/Louie) adventure stories geared toward
>beginning readers?
>
>Thanks in advance!
>Toby
>  
>
Out of place? Here? How could that possibly be?

My own kids weren't much older than that when I started reading Uncle 
Scrooge aloud to them. They quickly caught on that they had to sit where 
they could see the page. (I always pointed at the panel I was reading 
from.) I found their attention, even at early stages of language 
development, would hold for about a half-dozen pages, so I'd plan 
stopping points in advance and do each story as a serial until they got 
old enough to follow it all the way through. (By acclimatizing them to 
continued stories right from the beginning, I got them interested enough 
to where we took six months to read through an unabridged edition of The 
Count of Monte Cristo by the time the oldest was 14.)

Also, even at the beginning, they'd often follow the ten-pagers all the 
way through. I very much recommend them for beginning readers.

Reading the stories aloud enables them to appreciate things beyond their 
own reading level. It also encourages them to follow along, and thus 
push their reading level higher. By the time they were in school, I was 
starting to find my Gladstone albums in odd places around the house, as 
they'd read Scrooge et al. on their own.

Very young children respond to good stories just like grownups do, and 
Barks did some of the best stories in comics. Scrooge is very accessible 
to that age group, if the material is presented right.

I don't think I need to tell you your son has very good taste. Nurture 
it, and he'll buck the trends and be a top-notch reader.

Quack, Don