Reading List for Kids

More fun with Comics!

If you like Chester the Crab’s series, try these other comics that discuss history. You can find the following titles at your local bookstore, on Amazon.com or in your local comic book shop (found in the telephone directory yellow pages under “comic”).

Elementary School and Up

1602 (Elizabethan) / color / Marvel Comics

What if the Fantastic Four hit a weird storm in the Atlantic instead of cosmic rays in space? This series of stories is great alternative history, putting Peter Parker, Tony Stark and other characters you recognize into Elizabethan lives.

When Virginia Was the Wild West (1600s) / color / Colonial Williamsburg

This look at the way people lived in early Virginia even has some 3-D pages!

Sons of Liberty (American Revolution) / Marshall Poe / B&W / Aladdin

Sketchy drawings don’t show much historical detail but book is small for small hands.

Epic Battles of the Civil War (Civil War) / color / Historical Souvenir

Wording is stiff and coloring is as flat and silly as a 1950s comic. But these cover a lot.

Graphic Battles of the Civil War / (Civil War) / color / Rosen Book Works

Too wordy, but these books do have good historical detail for any Civil War buffs.

Explore Black History with Wee Pals / Morrie Turner / B&W / Just Us Books

Dr. Seuss Goes to War (World War II) / Richard Minear / New Press

See if you can find Horton the elephant or Yertle the Turtle in his newspaper cartoons.

Time Warp Trio graphic novels / Jon Scieszka / color / Harper Trophy

These comix just take images from the TV cartoon of the Trio. Simple but fun.

Middle School and Up

Cartoon History of the Universe (natural science) / Larry Gonick / B&W / Harper Perennial

Gonick’s books have underground style and humor and cover a lot of ground quickly.

Horrible Histories / Terry Deary / B&W / Scholastic

More chapter books than a comic, but comic illustrations get the history to the funny bone

Journey into Mohawk Country (1600s NY) / George O’Connor / color / First Second Books

Fun! MAJOR POINTS for using the real words of a journal written by Dutch trader in 1634!!

Four Immigrants Manga (Victorian era) / Henry Kiyama / B&W / Stone Bridge Press

Not a modern manga but a historic document of drawings by a real immigrant to U.S.

9-11, vol. 1 and vol. 2 (2001) / Various / DC Comics

Many 1- or 2-page essays by cartoonists about the terrorist attacks. Moving and solemn.

Cartoon History of the U.S. / Larry Gonick / B&W / Harper Perennial

You get one panel on Boston Tea Party or Texas founding, but there is good humor.