French Graphic Novels

[SoCaliLover]

Bonjour!

My son is a semi-reluctant reader even in his native language of English.  We have found though that he devours graphic novels (in English) and that has translated to willingness to read other books.  I am wondering now if I can find some graphic novels for elementary age in French that he may enjoy but not speaking French myself its a bit of a challenge. Can anyone recommend any for that age group?  Thanks in advance!

[maize]

Try the Asterix books; the predate the graphic novel movement but really that is what they are. My siblings and I all enjoyed them when we were learning French.

[Monica_in_Switzerland]

There are so many.  Try searching for bande dessinée instead of graphic novel.  There, you're more likely to find series that were originally written in French, not that it matters that much.  

Some bandes dessinées resemble American comic book strips, but some have involved plots.  Some with more involved plots are:

Tintin, Les Petits Hommes, Asterix et Obelix...

But there are also graphic novels available in French.  My kids like Les Classiques en Manga.  These are typical manga style drawings, with the book flowing backwards, from back to front, Japanese style.  

We've gotten a lot of mileage out of the Histoire du Monde en BD as well as others in the same series which you can see by scrolling down on the linked amazon page.  

I know we have more, but I can't bring any to mind right now!  Here are some heavily illustrated books we enjoy: 

A lower-level reader (but all my kids enjoy them, including the 10 and 12 year olds) is the Max and Lili series.  These books are small and short, comic strip style, and very fun.  

Vendredi ou la Vie Sauvage is a classic French youth novel written as a complete ripoff of DeFoe's Robinson Crusoe.  The version linked should take you to a version with a cover illustrated in all blue/teal monochrome by Roman Badel.  This version is a HEAVILY illustrated (every page) large format version of the relatively short novel, and the illustrations are hilarious.  

By the same illustrator as above, Poil de Carotte, a heavily illustrated (every page) version of a French classic children's novel.  

Here is a link the a graphic novelization of a classic French book:  La Guerre des Boutons  "Tome" means book and indicates the book is a part of a series, this is a link to Tome 1, there are only 2 in total I think, Tome 1 and Tome 2.  

It's common to see a graphic novelization of a novel as a series of BD (Tome 1, tome 2, ...).  Our library has this for lots of books, including (French translations of) Wind in the Willows, Oliver Twist...

Another great BD series is Les Enfants de la Resistance.  This follows French children courageously fighting back (through sabotage, etc.) during the German occupation of WWII.  Guerre de Lulus and Le Reseau Papillon.  

 

Anyway, just a few we've enjoyed!  

[ttt]

My son just enjoyed Darwin and also Audubon, On The Wings Of The World by Fabien Grolleau.  Read them them in English but they were originally written in French.  Both kids like https://www.amazon.com/Sisters-1-air-famille/dp/2350784959 and other graphic novels by Christophe Cazenove.  Some of them are science oriented.

[SoCaliLover]

Thank you all!