How About Dickens?

Dickens is considered one of our greatest authors.  Honestly, although I think he wrote great stories, I often find them dull to read.  Dickens was very verbose.  (I understand he was paid by the word, so he used many more words than necessary.)  I’m not a fan of verbose fiction.  But I do want my children to be familiar with the stories of great literature.  That’s why I was intrigued when I heard about the Graphic Dickens series.

Graphic Dickens

A Tale of Two Cities isn’t available yet, which is a bit of a bummer, since we were studying exactly that time period when our books arrived, but what is available is still good. 🙂  We got Oliver Twist and Great Expectations.  These are graphic novels.  Translation: comic books.

Now, comic books are clearly not on a level with the original texts!  However, they can be a great way to introduce a basic storyline, which, in turn, makes it easier for a student to follow the full-length book later.  (They’re also quick and easy to read, which is a benefit if your student is balking at reading the story.)  Think of these as the “nutshell version”– more interesting than Cliff’s Notes; more condensed than the average “condensed version.”

My 9-year-old daughter enjoyed these.  However, do keep in mind that these are still Dickens.  He wrote about some hard topics, and those are not glossed over here.  There are rough story elements and even a few rough words (bad language).  (Had I realized about the language a little sooner, I might have “edited” our copy before handing it over.  It’s just a word or two, so that would be easy to do.)

Conclusion

If you have hesitant readers you might consider giving these a try.  (I was recently surprised by how many other classics are also available in graphic-novel format.  Beowulf, for instance.)  Or if you want to give an older student a general idea of a book’s plot before diving into the original, consider a graphic novel.

At the other end of the spectrum, if you want to be sure your student understood a full-length classic, you might have him create a graphic novel of the story!

Disclosure: I was provided by the publisher with copies of the books mentioned above, to facilitate my review.  As always, all opinions expressed here are entirely my own.