Comments on: What is it about Tintin?

By: SwitchedOnMom

SwitchedOnMom — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 18:33:50 +0000

Black Ink. Here’s a link: http://www.blackinkboston.com/store/search

By: Marie

Marie — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 18:07:16 +0000

do you remember the name of the store that was selling the Tintin merchandise??

By: SwitchedOnMom

SwitchedOnMom — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 00:12:28 +0000

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.

By: Helen

Helen — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 22:14:11 +0000

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!!!!!!

By: kim.hormone-colored days

kim.hormone-colored days — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 22:23:10 +0000

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.

By: Kowhai

Kowhai — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 08:44:42 +0000

Funny to read this today. DH brought Bone home from the library this morning, and he and DDs (5 & almost 8) devoured it.

‘Calvin & Hobbes’ has also caused a few imitative episodes here. DD (almost 8) 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.

By: SwitchedOnMom

SwitchedOnMom — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:45:13 +0000

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.

By: SwitchedOnMom

SwitchedOnMom — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:42:17 +0000

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. .

By: Subadra

Subadra — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:59:32 +0000

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

By: SwitchedOnMom

SwitchedOnMom — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 03:56:09 +0000

Ah yes. We too had some bathtub tidal wave experiments!