4 Reasons Why Comics Are Good For Kids

Since the invention of comics nearly a century ago people have been split in groups about their value and place in literature. In the beginning, parents were completely against comics because they thought comics did not offer as much value and class to its readers as other mediums of reading do. Things changed later as comics were popularized and many movies based on them were made. The image of comics has improved a great deal in the past but there is still a huge population of parents and teachers that does not believe in letting kids read comics
There are teachers and parents who will still stop their children from reading comics and encourage them to read other stuff. In their minds they believe that a child is having a loss by reading comics. That’s not the case at all and recent studies have proved it. Today, you will know about reasons for which parents should allow their kids to read comics just as much as they allow their kids to read their favorite stuff. Here are some top reasons:
Researches Prove Comic Reading Benefitting
Being a truly modern person you must believe in science and studies. The most recent studies and researches done on this particular subject have proved that comic reading is actually a great thing for children. Scientists at University of Illinois have stated it clearly that comics are just as benefiting for children as any other books because absorbing text is not the only aim of reading something. Another professor from library and information science department, named Carol Tilley, has called comics just as benefiting for children as reading other forms of literature.
She clearly answers the critique from several parents about children reading comics but not putting pictures together by saying that it depends on the child. A child could be looking at just the pictures in his picture book and not the words. She says that the personality of the reader and their intellect matter a lot when it comes to reading a book and benefiting from it. She also asks the parents to understand that comics can be just as complex as other types of literature because putting pictures together with one-line texts requires some intellect.
Makes Children Readers
You know it as a parent that with children you have to start with the simplest of things so they understand things. In the beginning they will tell a child that an atom consists of nucleus, electrons, protons and neutrons. However, as they go in higher grades they come to know about a whole world that lies within the nucleus of an atom. In the same way, comics help kids understand things their way. The pictures in front of them mean a lot to them and they are more appealing than lines and lines of small text written on pages after pages.
With comics they have to read very little as most of the text is in the speech balloons, as captions or single lines. If you want to make your kids readers, you will have to first attract them towards reading. The best way to do that is through comics. They love comics and ask for more when they are done with one. This leads them to becoming great readers as they age. Just observe how kids would often like to watch stuff they don’t want to read. In that same manner, they like comics because of the pictures but slowly they become great readers. There are comic series, such as "Suicide Squad," "Born Again," "Ghost World," and many more that really interest children.
They Learn Inference
Kids would read comics and learn things before they clearly happen before their eyes. For example, if you as a parent tell your kid that your belly is making weird noises at 10 in the morning, your kid might infer that you are hungry. That’s inference and comics are great in teaching this to kids. Comics don’t always explain everything and when a punch line is missing it is left on the kid to make an inference based on the little text and the picture in front of him/her. Such learning helps them greatly with social skills as they grow up.
They Learn Vocabulary
Comics from Jim Davis are a great example of how some writers like to use big words in their comics. These words prove to be a great way for children to learn vocabulary. They will often look at a word in their comic and ask their parents for the meaning. If a kid is asking you the meaning it means the content of the comic is important for him/her. Your child wants to learn the word because they want to know exactly is happening in the comic. In addition to that, comics can be a great way for kids to learn other languages. With little text they are best for kids to learn new words from other languages.

Small Changes Make "Fiddler on the Roof" Feminist Without Breaking Tradition


Image: Screenshot from Fiddler on the Roof Broadway on YouTube
Though it lost the 2016 Best Revival Tony Award to The Color Purple, the number that this latest Broadway mounting of Fiddler on the Roof performed during the telecast did highlight one of the ways in which this production is different from previous ones. (Insert your own Passover joke, here.)
It is the best-danced Fiddler I’ve ever experienced, with intricate, energetic and innovative choreography (granted, I was too young to have seen the Jerome Robbins original). In fact, its feminist mindset slyly betrays itself in that the lead dancer of the "To Life!" number, though dressed in traditional male Jewish Orthodox garb, is obviously a woman. That's already pretty subversive, though subtle.

The show also features an interesting take on Tevye. 6-time Tony nominee Danny Burstein plays Tevye as a man who uses his periodic, nearly-sitcom-level clowning as a way to diffuse tense situations. Whereas previous Teveys started off the show already beaten down, Burstein visibly fights against it. He appears desperate to behave as if nothing is that serious or that horrible that it can’t be laughed off, in order to prevent those around him from panicking, and to keep their spirits up. It makes his breakdown into rage over Chava, and into despair at their eviction even more devastating. This is a man who made the best of a bad situation for as long as he could, and he just doesn’t have it in him anymore.
But the freshest character interpretations come from Fiddler’s women. Tevye is front and center inFiddler. He is the narrator and we see the action unfold through his eyes. As a result, it’s easy to miss the fact that the bulk of the plot is directed by the women. Yes, Tevye needs to deal with multiple changes. But it’s his daughters (and, to an extent, his wife) who do the actual changing and propelling story forward. Tevye reacts. They act.
Tzeitel stands up to her father and insists on marrying the man she loves. Hodel realizes there’s more to life than the shtetl, adopts a radical political mind-set and sets off for Siberia where, soon (assuming they live), she’ll be an actual revolutionary (whether she and Perchik will survive the purging of the purgers is anyone’s guess). Meanwhile, Chava has a forbidden conversation with a non-Jew (though I’ve always wondered what language this interaction took place in, as Chava is unlikely to have spoken Russian, and Feydka certainly wouldn’t have spoken Yiddish), turns her back on her beloved family and gets married by a Russian Orthodox priest, presumably converting along the way.

Image: Screenshot from Fiddler on the Roof Broadway on YouTube

These are all huge, dramatic events, but they tend to get overshadowed by Tevye’s soul-searching (and dream making up-ing). Not in this production. In this production, the women shine.
Hodel, played by Samantha Massell, possesses such high intelligence and wit (and “the tongue she gets from her mother”) that she reduces the revolutionary who presumably makes speeches in front of hostile crowds and argues with university intellectuals into a stammering, tripping mess who can barely keep up with her.
Tzeitel, here played by Alexandra Silber, tends to traditionally (see what I did there?) come off as the quieter, less fiery sister compared to Hodel. But this Tzeitel is undeniably her mother’s daughter, standing up for herself, and brow-beating Mottl into standing up for both of them. As they set off for America, the audience has no trouble believing that this is a Tzeitel who will make certain her husband (the only one among them with a transferable, professional skill) will quickly find work on the Lower East Side of New York City. First doing piecework, then in a factory and, eventually, with his own shop (why not his own factory?). Mottl might not possess the chutzpa to pull it off but, don’t worry, this Tzeitel does.

Image: Screenshot from Fiddler on the Roof Broadway on YouTube

The real revelation, though, is Golde. Golde tends to be played like an old woman. But let’s do the math. Tzeitel is said to be 20 years old, and her parents have been married for a quarter of a century. So Golde is, what? 45 at most? Possibly even younger? 40? Yes, life in the shtetl was brutally hard, and it aged people prematurely. But this is a still-vibrant woman!
Jessica Hecht (you probably know her from Friends, she was Susan, Carol's wife), who plays Golde, at 51 is actually older than Maria Karnilova who originated the Broadway role at age 44, and Norma Crane who portrayed her in the movie at 41. But Hecht acts younger. In this Golde, you can see the girl a shy and nervous Tevye first met on their wedding day. Her energy is similar to that of her five, boisterous daughters, and you might catch her living a little bit through them and their adventures (at least, until her own breakdown over Tevye’s insisting they consider Chava dead). You can also, during the “Do You Love Me?” number, watch Golde light up and, possibly for the first time ever, flirt with her husband – not to mention finally fall in love with him after twenty-five years of merely making do.
Most Americans’ familiarity with Fiddler on the Roof comes via the movie, and that’s one version that’s never going to change. On the other hand, there are various national touring companies, not to mention hundreds of community theater and high-school productions.
What do you think? Should future Fiddlers on the Roof adopt this more feminist version of the classic show? I think it can be done faithfully to the original material, without changing a single line. It’s all in the performances.