Flipbook Kit and Books for Comic Kids

We have a big graphic novel bookworm at our house and so for one birthday, we gifted him this flipbook kit. It might seem like an extravagance, but after trying our best to create flipbooks without this kit our patience maxed out. We realised that we just could not cut hundreds of sheets of paper to the exact same size and keep them all together to flip properly. This kit totally solved the problems we were having with our DIY flipbooks. Plus, the light board allows images to be traced easily with slight variations, also vital for flipbook animation.

This kit would be ideal for any kid who is really interested in graphic novels, comics, and animations. Below I’ll list a few books that would be a great match with the kit for a wonderful present for your creative kiddo.

Dogman series, by Dav Pilkey

This spin-off from Pilkey’s wildly successful Captain Underpants series brings more colour, action, and ridiculous antics to readers. One of the most successful tools for engaging readers is Pilkey’s flip-o-rama pages. Each book will have about 5 or 6 of these throughout the story and they are essentially mini animations. Readers are instructed how to hold and flip the pages so that they see a small movement from the characters. Very useful in the action scenes, kids will love ‘seeing’ the animation.

Cat Kid Comic Club series, also by Dav Pilkey

This a spin-off from the Dogman series and each book contains introduces readers to a wide spectrum of media that animation and image creation can take. I really appreciated the various short stories which give kids the idea that their own attempts don’t have to be perfect, lengthy or refined. There is a lot here that will have even reluctant readers interested. The jokes are funny, the pace is fast and there is a lot of visual stimulation. It is quite possible that some kids will get to the end and not realise they have just been given an art lesson.

Nursery Rhyme Comics, various creators with an introduction by Leonard S. Marcus

This is a wonderful intro to the world of graphic novels. Many of the rhymes will be familiar (at least to grown-ups) and each is re-imagined as a comic. Rhymes that get a new image are: Old Mother Hubbard, Mary Had A Little Lamb, Little Miss Muffet, and London Bridge is Falling Down. Each rhyme is illustrated by a different creator, and included are some of our favourite graphic novel creators, including Raina Telgemeier and Vera Brosgul. What’s really great is that creative kids get to see so many different styles of illustrations.

My kids loved this one and we found it difficult to stop after just a few. Before we knew it we’d read all 50 in one go. A very modern take on old classics, a great one for a home library.

Comic Squad Series, various authors and illustrators

This series of books features some big names in the graphic novel world that our family has now fully set up camp in: Raina Telgemeier, Dav Pilkey, Victoria Jamieson, Dan Santat, Ben Hatke, Cece Bell. This is such a clever concept for a book. Some kids just get stuck on one author, series, or style.

By bringing well-known, prolific authors together there is the chance that a kid who already likes one author, will test out another, and if they like what they read, then lots of new avenues of reading open up. So say a kid loved Captain Underpants, moved on to Dogman, and reads those books on repeat. You can hand them the first in this series and say Dav Pilkey has a story in here somewhere. There is then a high chance the kid will read the other stories and who knows, maybe they will love Raina Telgemeier and get stuck into her back catalogue.