Graphic Novel Reading Challenge

Since October is National Graphic Novel Writing Month, we used Beanstack's template for a kids (K-12) Graphic Novel Reading Challenge. The Graphic Novel Reading Challenge is done online through Beanstack (https://pikelibrary.beanstack.org/) or by downloading the free Beanstack app. Patrons can choose from the K-5 Challenge, Grades 6-8 Challenge, or Grades 9-12 challenge, and they just log books (which earns them fun virtual badges) and complete short activities (like playing around with Storyboard Creator, a quick history video on the graphic novel, or a printable template to create their own).

We paired this with a Facebook Live streaming session with a local artist/illustration, Christopher Epling, to do graphic novel reviews and how to draw videos. This was done every Monday in October at 4:30.

The four kids' graphic novels we selected were Dog Man by Dav Pilkey, Big Nate Goes Bananas by Lincoln Peirce, Smile by Raina Telgemeier, and Batman: The Brave and the Bold/Batman versus the Yeti by Torres, Barberi, Beatty.

For the live videos, we use OBS to stream pre-recorded videos or give our stream key to a presenter to go live directly from their laptop, wherever they may be. It has worked very well for our purposes.