Chapter Books vs. Graphic Novels: Can the New Kid on the Block Replace the Tried-and-True?

A few days ago, I exchanged some thought-provoking emails with a sweet mama friend. Her rising third grader, like many kids around that age, had caught a taste for art-based narratives, and her child's current plat du jour is the graphic novel. But her reader is not the only one.

According to the National Literacy Trust, 40.3% of youth aged 8-18 read graphic novels at least once a month, with their popularity highest among elementary-aged children at approximately 69%.

But the new craze over the graphic novel is not completely novel. In fact, the format itself is but a new iteration of a decades-old form: the comic book. The traditional comic book of the 1940s that offered post-war kids inspired stories with larger-than-life heroes and memorable villains. This artistic medium then bloomed into the everyday tales of ordinary teenagers like Archie, Betty, Jughead, and Veronica and the side-adventures of Josie and the Pussycats. They were strictly sequential stories with vibrant illustrations contained within a magazine that brought simple tales to life for generations of children across America and the world. The graphic novel, the new kid on the block, was designed to transform the quick, episodic stories of the comic book into a singular book-length plot. It was to be a more "serious" version than its predecessor, attracting not only young readers but more mature book-lovers as well.

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

The question is: should we let our children read them?

The short answer is yes, but graphic novels should not be your child's primary literary diet and should definitely not replace the chapter book. And here’s why:

Fewer Opportunities to Decode, Build Fluency, and Acquire Vocabulary

Though mostly independent, readers in the tween years are still practicing decoding through silent reading. By their very design, graphic novels include fewer words on a page and fewer words on a page mean fewer opportunities to decode, fewer exposures to new vocabulary, and fewer opportunities to develop reading fluency. A child who reads primarily in panels is a child whose language muscles are being significantly underworked.

The Risk of Rewiring the Brain

We have heard much about the dangers of digital screens and social media on the developing brain, but steady consumption of panel-style graphic texts can create a similar "skimming brain" to those developed in children who regularly consume electronic data. This rewiring helps your child process information on the page more quickly, but the processing is shallow and retention suffers. That’s why your child will remember the entire plot of Charlotte's Web as an adult but will barely recall the storyline of a graphic novel they read a year or two ago. The graphic novel will let your child read faster, but the chapter book will teach your child to remember.

Collaborative World-Building: The Tourist vs. The Architect

Chapter books immerse the reader in a world. It takes as much brainwork for a child to construct that fictive space in their mind as it took the author to write it. This is a true partnership between author and reader; together they co-build something that never existed before. Each reading of the same book by a different child creates a new imaginative space, and with every reading the book takes on a new and unique life.

That is not just brainwork. That is a miracle!

You cannot get this magic from a graphic novel because the fictional landscape has already been drawn for the child… literally! Therefore, the co-building is greatly diminished, or becomes passive. Think of it this way: the reader of a graphic novel is a tourist in the fictional world. The reader of a chapter book is one of its architects.

Limitations of the Graphic Novel's Narrative Structure

Chapter books are built to hold big narratives rendered by tellers who may be stationed at unknown or multiple points in time, or who may tell stories that are themselves temporally undefined. While the graphic novel can flash back or flash forward, it cannot handle a narrator who is not temporally fixed or a story deliberately told out of order. A child who reads graphic novels in lieu of chapter books misses the opportunity to experience the full range of narrative structures, some of which are beautifully complex and worth the mental navigation.

Reading Stamina and the Age-Old Contract

The goal over time is to introduce more challenge to your child, not less. Building reading stamina now will prepare your reader to tackle increasingly difficult texts as they grow older and that capacity can only be built one way: by picking up a book and seeing it through to its end.

One of my greatest critiques of public school education is the widespread move away from whole-text instruction toward the excerpt all in the name of informational literacy and, of course, the standards. This shift has produced an entire generation of children who enter universities never having read a single book all the way through to the utter shock and dismay of their professors.

To learn more about the transition away from whole-text instruction, read: What We Lost When We Stopped Teaching Literature

The only way out of this quagmire is to enter that age-old contract between a reader and a book: begin, stay the course, and finish. That commitment, practiced repeatedly over the years, is what builds stamina and a lifelong reading habit.

The Verdict

The graphic novel is a solid form of literature in its own right but it is no substitute for the richness and textual complexity of the tried-and-true chapter book. Use graphic novels as occasional decoding breaks for your child. Toss one or two onto your reader's pile after every three or four chapter books as a treat, or pair one with the chapter book version of the same story or a chapter book with similar themes. That way your child receives the best of both worlds: the depth and complexity of the chapter book alongside the lighter fare that graphic novels provide.

Some Recommended Pairings

If you're ready to build a balanced reading diet for your child, here are some chapter books and graphic novels that share themes, characters, or tone so that your reader gets the best of both worlds:

Chapter Book	Graphic Novel Companion	What They Share
Charlotte's Web  by E.B. White	Stitches  by David Small	Themes of friendship, loss, and finding one's voice
Wonder by R.J. Palacio	Wink by Rob Harrell	All about facing difference with courage and humor
Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell	Roller Girl by Victoria Jamieson	Independence, identity, perseverance, finding strength alone
The One and Only Ivan  by Katherine Applegate	El Deafo by Cece Bell	Themes of belonging and friendship
Beowulf, Dragon Slayer  retold by Rosemary Sutcliff	Bea Wolf  by Zach Weinersmith	The epic tale and the hero's journey

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