Is it me, or is there something about gifted kids and Tintin?
We were out of town over the weekend, visiting relatives and friends in Boston, and curiously, a Tintin theme emerged. Who (or what) is Tintin? Here’s the beginning of the Wikipedia entry, for those who might not be familiar with him (Tintin has been wildly popular in Europe for 80-plus years but is rather obscure in the U.S.):
The Adventures of Tintin (Les Aventures de Tintin) is a series of comic strips created by Belgian artist Hergé, the pen name of Georges Remi (1907–1983). The series first appeared in French in Le Petit Vingtième, a children’s supplement to the Belgian newspaper Le Vingtième Siècle on 10 January 1929. Set in a painstakingly researched world closely mirroring our own, Hergé’s Tintin series continues to be a favourite of readers and critics alike 80 years later.
The hero of the series is Tintin, a young Belgian reporter. He is aided in his adventures from the beginning by his faithful fox terrier dog Snowy (Milou in French). Later, popular additions to the cast included the brash, cynical and grumpy Captain Haddock, the bright but hearing-impaired Professor Calculus (Professeur Tournesol) and other colourful supporting characters such as the incompetent detectives Thomson and Thompson (Dupond et Dupont). Hergé himself features in several of the comics as a background character; as do his assistants in some instances.
Tintin came into our household through my husband, who happens to have been born in Denmark. As a child he amassed a collection of Tintin books (as well as Asterix and Obelisk) that decades later somehow found their way onto his adult brother’s bookshelves. After protracted (and intensive) negotiations, Husband Dear regained possession of the beloved books which he in turn passed on to C. and M.
They love them–M. especially. I couldn’t even guess how many times she has reread the stories. I just know that there always seem to be a few within arm’s reach of her bed.
So what is the attraction? Wikipedia speaks of
its clean, expressive drawings in Hergé’s signature ligne claire style. Engaging, well-researched plots straddle a variety of genres: swashbuckling adventures with elements of fantasy, mysteries, political thrillers, and science fiction. The stories within the Tintin series always feature slapstick humour, accompanied in later albums by sophisticated satire, and political and cultural commentary.
But there are other qualities that would make the Tintin stories particularly appealing to gifted kids. Tintin is “a clever little guy who outsmarts big bullies,” a theme that no doubt resonates with many gifted kids. He’s a teenager with a seemingly limitless bank account, no parents, who freely travels the world. (When you’re bursting with big ideas and big dreams who wouldn’t want to be a similarly powerful person?) And the stories have deliciously rich vocabulary and word play. (You can read why one Brit dad is “Mad about the Boy” here.)
So imagine M.’s delight when she came upon a shop in Harvard Square that was selling Tintin watches. The following day we were once again strolling in Cambridge and spotted a shop selling Tintin merchandise. There were mugs, some posters and of course different collections of the books. We couldn’t resist and bought her an “I ♥ (picture of Snowy) mug. M. was amazed. You almost never find Tintin merchandise. Yet here near Harvard it was seemingly everywhere. Hmm. Coincidence? I think not.
The funniest thing, though, was Halloween. C. had spent the day with her friend, and we went to pick her up later in the evening. And what had she and her friend come up with for costumes? Why, Tintin and Captain Haddock! Evidently these two frighteningly bright almost 16-year-olds poured through the books looking for a certain scene. (They also carved a pair of Siamese pumpkins, joined at the head. Very fitting.) The friend’s mom mentioned to M. that when her son had a bad day, he turned to Tintin. “I do the same thing!” M. exclaimed. Somehow these books were deeply satisfying and comforting to him.
Tintin is not without controversies. The books were, after all, written in the early part of the last century, and they’ve been called racist, violent and condoning of cruelty to animals. But I see that as an opportunity to talk about stereotypes and how things attitudes and beliefs can change over time. In short, there is much to like about Tintin books and I regularly recommend them to mom’s with kids (especially boys) who are just on the verge of reading. Kids can follow along just by the pictures, but the stories are so engaging that that they are highly motivated to figure out the little speech bubbles of text. Calvin and Hobbes is in a similar vein, but I’ll leave that for another day.
That’s so funny! Both my kids love them, and have also read them in Spanish (for required Spanish immersion reading time).
I started reading them when I was a teenager in Belgium, and loved them too. There used to be an entire Tintin store near Rockefeller Center in NYC … I wonder if it’s still there?
If there was one, I don’t believe it’s there anymore.
We have many Tintin and many Asterix and Obelisk books in our house. I can’t remember whether my wife or I introduced them to our son, but he loves both series, and rereads them frequently. When the library summer reading program generates “reading dollars” that can be spent a local stores, he spends them all at the comic-book shop on Tintin or Asterix and Obelisk. (The comic-book shop is the only store with a $20 limit on the reading dollars—all the other stores have limits from $1 to $3.)
When he was younger, he re-read the Magic Schoolbus books as obsessively (lately, he’s been reading Magic Schoolbus again, but in Spanish this time). Of course, obsessive re-reading of this sort only makes up about 10% of his total reading time.
As the mom of such a boy and a former bookseller in one of the largest and well known children’s bookstores in the US, I agree with just about everything you wrote.
However, I would be reluctant to suggest for emergent readers. Perhaps that’s because my son was reading at 4 and absorbing Calvin and Hobbes at 5. At the bookstore, they were most popular with the 8 and up set, especially 10 – 12 year olds. Both Tintin and Asterix. (And yes, both were very popular. And our local library has a huge stack of dog-eared copies that came in and out of our house, starting probably around age 7-8.)
I would not have wanted him absorbing unconsciously the Tintin stereotypes at 5 or 6. However, I think the books are actually quite valuable for older readers to learn about common stereotypes. That can help them recognize them in other literature and understand how prevalent and pervasive some were (and how some go to great lengths today to avoid). Plus great adventures and great art, interesting characters, all the things you point out.
Kyoto has a little store devoted to Tintin, including a fascinating display of miniatures of every vehicle from every book. (Is it a coincidence it is in the same building as a famous yarn store?
) (I wasn’t surprised to see Tintin in Japan, but we were all surprise at how much Moomintroll merchandise we saw. We loved those books.)
I only had one customer who ever pronounced Tintin correctly in French. At first, I didn’t even know what she was asking about. Oops, makes me feel kinda unwashed, I wish I could pronounce it properly but I can’t and now pronouncing it wrong feels wrong. From her, the French pronunciation sounded natural. If I told you the customer’s name, you’d recognize it, or at least you’d recognize her stepson’s name.
A customer clued me into Bone, by Jeff Smith, shortly before they went temporarily out of print (they were later republished in color and should be available now). I was able to track them down for my son (age 8 at the time). Both my son and his friends, male and female, and their siblings all devoured our copies. My MIL is a great Pogo fan, and my husband talks about reading and rereading Pogo in the same way you mention the Tintin. Wordplay, satire, depth and silliness.
Thanks for the great commentary, Dorothy! I have never heard of Bone, but will look for it when I’m in a book store and file it away on my “possible birthday/holiday present for 8 year old” list.
And oh yes, it’s pronounced “Tantan” in this house.
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I heard that there’s a Tintin movie in production so that’s why you may be seeing merchandise.
I loved Tintin growing up for the mysteries aspect. I was also a big fan of Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, Sherlock Holmes, and Agatha Christie’s novels.
There is indeed a Tintin book in the works (Stephen Spielberg, I believe) but I don’t think that merchandising wave has hit yet. But yes, we should all brace ourselves.
Ooops, just found this link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0983193/. And this one for the complete skinny: http://tintinology.poosk.com/
Daniel Craig as Red Rackham, but a relative unknown as Tintin.
Calvin and Hobbes…oh boy. I had to ban them for awhile because they were a bit too inspirational.
Will seek out Tintin. I can pronounce it, but never read it. Thanks for the tip!
Ah yes. We too had some bathtub tidal wave experiments!
Hi,
While growing up back home in India, we were exposed to a lot of Tin Tin, Asterix and Laurel and Hardy comic books. Atleast in my family, it was something we siblings ‘earned’ as a weekend reading pleasure (if we finished our homeworks and other chores for the week), from the local library, that charged 10paisa for each comic book rental.
Here in the US, my kids (especially my ds) went through a phase of obsession with Calvin and Hobbes, Tin Tin, Peanuts…(but Calvin and Hobbes always was his fav). He is 9 now and still reads and re-reads these books, even though he is not that very obsessed as before. When he devoured Tin Tin, as a homeschooling mom, I have always used it for discussion related to geography and history.
Since my ds devours anything funnily written, we invested on plenty of knowledge based funny/humorous books. It has infact changed my view about reading comics and graphic novels(as opposed to culturally seen as just a past time hobby reading, and even waste of time:)).
I wrote a post about it in my blog, and also listed a lot of comic/graphic ‘educational’ books:)…in case your interested in taking a look….scroll down to the booklists http://bookslinksandmore.blogspot.com/2009/05/comics-graphic-novels_29.html
-Subadra
Subadra, I am in awe of your blog! Thanks for posting that link. Agreed, graphic novels can be quite sophisticated. I remember a series of “comic books’ that were all about history. My 5th grade teacher had them in his classroom and I remember devouring them.
Funny to read this today. DH brought Bone home from the library this morning, and he and DDs (5 & almost
devoured it.
‘Calvin & Hobbes’ has also caused a few imitative episodes here. DD (almost
went through an overly long phase of pulling Calvin faces in photographs. We also had the transmogrifier phase, but my favourite was when we kept finding letters in the mailbox written by our future selves.
Great food for imaginative kids.
My boys love TinTin, but I had no clue this was a gifted thang. They also love Lulu, Calvin and Hobbes, oh and Garfield (ugh). I think my 9 year-old’s primary summer reading was comic books. And yet his Fall MAP score shows better then expected improvement. Go figure.
Hello, it is such a funny coincidence to revisit your blog for the first time in months and read this post! I contacted you last year asking for your advice on my extremely-demanding 3-year-old (had a different e-mail address back then). We dropped off the map for a while due to Life Issues and are now much more settled and living in the UK. The Young Man is now an extremely demanding 4-year-old – and obsessed with Tintin! “Blistering barnacles!” is the current curse of choice and I am often under strict instructions that I must visit the library while he is at nursery and hunt out whichever new adventure he’d like us to read (I have no idea how much he can read, I read them to him, I sense he can read more than he lets on but giving the game away over this would interfere with his mission to get my 100% attention 24 hours per day – but anyway I’d agree with you about the emergent reader thing, they’re at just the right level for his need for exciting, fast-paced stories with no dumbing-down in language yet clearly understandable because of the pictures). It is odd that when I think about your site and what I’ve read here, I breathe a sigh of relief because Monsieur suddenly seems so much more normal and understandable… yet he is so far from what I’d class as gifted. The doctor has asked me to write a behaviour diary for him, which I haven’t been able to start because there is So Much to put on I’m paralysed – and also so much of his behaviour that is not exactly bad – it is so hard to convey what he’s like unless somebody has had direct experience of the onslaught. “But all 4-year-olds look for attention – being bored might do him good!” “No, no, noooooooo!” At least now we’ve moved to UK, he’ll be starting school in just over six months. Counting the days….! “Mummy, what does FILIBUSTER mean??” Arrgghhhhh!!!!!!
Helen,
Wonderful to “see” you here again. I absolutely remember you
. Your Young Man sounds like he’s curious and full of life. Still sounds *very* gifted to me. Hope life in England is treating you well and send me an update off blog if you’re so inclined.
do you remember the name of the store that was selling the Tintin merchandise??
Black Ink. Here’s a link: http://www.blackinkboston.com/store/search