Why graphic novels are the ideal way of getting young children engaged with important issues
All children need to learn about the more challenging aspects of human history and society, but they need to learn more than the raw facts. Through engaging with stories about people living through difficult times, they can better understand how these people and events might relate to them and their own experience.
Graphic novels are a booming sector of children’s publishing and good graphic novels can be an excellent way of introducing the most difficult subjects to young children. Illustrations engage the emotions immediately, and encourage the reading of the text, especially in those for whom reading is more difficult. In graphic novels, imagery alone can portray not only complex events, but also a sense of drama, sadness, fear, love, loneliness, memories, happiness and humour.
There’s a long history of graphic novels that tell sometimes difficult social and historical stories that are meant for an adult audience. ‘Maus’ is a Pulitzer prize winning graphic novel about the Holocaust by Art Spiegelman (Penguin 2003). Around the same time Spiegelman was publishing ‘Maus’, a new book by Raymond Briggs was published in the UK by Hamish Hamilton. People were familiar with his hugely successful earlier children’s books in a graphic novel or comic strip format including ‘Father Christmas’ (1973) and ‘The Snowman’ (1978). But most were shocked by the content and tone of his new book ‘When the Wind Blows’ (Hamish Hamilton 1982).
This was a time when the threat of nuclear war was still terrifying young families in Britain. I had two young sons, five and three years of age at the time, and the British Government had recently published ‘Protect and Survive’ (1980), a booklet intended to instruct the population how to survive in the event of a nuclear attack by a foreign power.
I remember stocking my under-stairs cupboard with tinned food and water, torches and toilet paper, fearing the worst but desperately hoping for the best. It was into this scenario that Raymond Briggs brought out ‘When the Wind Blows’, a graphic novel style picture book about an elderly couple who slowly perish, page by difficult page, after dutifully trying to follow government guidance on surviving a nuclear attack.
My young sons read this when it came out, and still remember it nearly forty years later. However, they don’t remember being particularly frightened by it. That’s possibly because they knew nothing of the imminent risks, and also failed to identify with the elderly characters. Had it been a story about children in the same situation, it may have had a different effect on them. I certainly never showed it to my overly empathetic daughter born three years later. As soon as she was old enough to read it, it was on a very high shelf.
My first graphic novel style picture book ‘Peter in Peril’ (Otter-Barry Books 2016) is aimed at children in KS2, and depicts the true story of a Jewish child surviving in Budapest, Hungary during the Holocaust.
This story views the events through the eyes of young Peter, who is largely oblivious of the more frightening and unseen terrors that are taking place. Adults will read ‘between the lines’ and can explain the background in an age-appropriate way. The post-war recovery period was an essential aspect of the story that I felt important to include for this age group, showing how normal life eventually does return following even the most terrible disasters.
Like World War Two, the events of April 1986 also changed the world for ever. When the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl in Ukraine exploded, national boundaries were no protection from the resulting radioactive cloud. The winds blew it north and west, over many European countries including Belarus, Austria, Hungary and Germany. It travelled as far as Sweden and the UK, causing problems in some areas that will last for hundreds of years. Even in parts of the UK, farmers lived with restrictions on the movement of livestock until 2012.
Having been interested for many years in the aftermath of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, I wanted to find a way to write about its legacy for a young audience. As I started to think about how I should approach this, I looked again at ‘When the Wind Blows’ to carefully consider how to, or how NOT to create an accessible children’s book about a nuclear disaster, that would be suitable for children in KS2. In 1982 when nuclear war was a real possibility, the honest depiction in ‘When the Wind Blows’ was hard for many adults to stomach, never mind children of eight or nine. It is much easier for us all to see such traumatic stories through a historical telescope, and from a safe distance.
A true story for children about the experiences of a real child and their family living through the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 was not an option. Most of these families are still alive and their often, traumatic experiences are not mine to tell. The risk today of a nuclear accident is still very real and some KS2 children may be anxious that it could happen again. There is already far too much going wrong in the world that children have no control over, and I didn’t want the story of Chernobyl to add to their anxieties. The theme of my story is that recovery from a nuclear disaster is possible. This is a much more reassuring and positive message.
The story of what happened after Chernobyl is a complex one and the graphic novel format is an ideal way to introduce it to children in KS2. My latest book, ‘The Lost Child of Chernobyl’ (Otter-Barry Books 2021) begins with a mythical child lost in the forest on the night of the explosion when there’s a car crash. The child disappears, and lives with wolves for nine years before being brought to the home of two elderly sisters, deep in the forbidden zone. Everything else portrayed or mentioned in the book is based on true events. The people who died trying to prevent the disaster becoming so much worse, the elderly women who live in the ‘forbidden zone’, the ‘clean-up’ operation that took place in the villages after the explosion, the permanent evacuation of thousands of people from their homes, the abandoned town of Pripyat, the railway that still runs taking workers between the power station and the town of Slavutych, the tragic history of Ukraine with its man-made famine of 1932, and the atrocities that took place in World War Two. These are all portrayed or referred to in the story. The traumatic memories of the old ladies are included to explain their apparent fearlessness in the face of the invisible nuclear radiation.
In ‘Peter in Peril’, text panels allow the story to be easily read in a class situation, whereas ‘The Lost Child of Chernobyl’ is a more traditional graphic novel that tells the story largely in images and speech bubbles. I didn’t feel with this story, that it was as important to allow easy reading in a class situation because the underlying issues are less complex. Children in KS2 can independently read about and understand the poisoning of the land by an accidental explosion, whereas understanding the context of man’s purposeful cruelty and inhumanity at KS2, initially demands a higher level of adult involvement.
The graphic novel format has the potential to bring complex historical events alive in a visual way that’s very accessible, even for more reluctant readers. It allows readers to become immersed in that world, and to engage emotionally with the stories. While Peter is based on an actual child, the Lost Child is a fictional character. However, both the stories are historically accurate so that readers can not only understand what had taken place, but also how it might have felt to be there, living through those events. This is how empathy for others can more easily be encouraged, and empathy is something that is needed more than ever at this moment in time.
Another complex subject I’ve covered in my graphic novels for KS2 is dementia. ‘Me and Mrs Moon’ (Otter-Barry 2019) is a story about a woman with dementia and her young neighbour, Maisie. I spent ten years of my life creating books for people with mid to late-stage dementia, www.picturestoshare.co.uk and was immersed more fully in that world than I would have chosen when I had a parent with dementia.
I wanted to create a story that helped children in KS2 to understand the more complex reality of what dementia can mean both to the person with dementia, their families, friends and how it impacts their life choices. I also wanted to create an older character with whom the young reader could empathise. I certainly didn’t want to patronise people living with dementia, or support the idea that a good care home is the only answer.
Some of the events in the story were based on a wonderful book called ‘The Little Girl in the Radiator’ by Martin Slevin (Monday Books 2012). Martin wrote of how dementia affected his mother and it was a heart rending but often humorous story. ‘Me and Mrs Moon’ was a story where humour was essential in lightening the mood. Told from Maisie’s perspective like ‘Peter in Peril’, the format uses text panels to help explain the unpredictable behaviour of Mrs Moon to readers.
Whether introducing children in KS2 to major international disasters or dementia, it is possible through creating carefully considered graphic novels, to provide accessible stories full of hope. Because in our highly complex and troubled world, even our youngest children need these stories more than ever.
Creating graphic novels in the classroom
A graphic novel incorporates minimal text within sequences of images, to provide a clear narrative. Using books such as Peter in Peril, Me and Mrs Moon and The Lost Child of Chernobyl as reference material, a classroom project can include the following:
Create a short one or two-page sequence of drawings within boxes to tell a simple story. Think about how to show the action from different viewpoints.
Make sure you only show what is absolutely necessary to tell the story. Too much unnecessary detail can be confusing for the reader.
Think about how different styles of drawing convey different emotions, and how colour might convey a different atmosphere to black and white.
Think about different sounds that happen in the story and how to show these. Different shapes of speech or sound bubbles perhaps. Think how the style of the text itself will convey a different impression to the reader.
Consider how the unspoken or unconscious ideas or feelings of a character can be shown using thought, or dream bubbles.
Think about whether additional text panels are needed to help explain the action and how these should be incorporated to ensure the successful flow of the story.
This article was first published in NATE Primary Matters in April 2021