| abstract | - Toon Books is a collection of hardcover graphic early readers launched in 2008 by New Yorker art editor Françoise Mouly. With titles by Mouly's advisor/husband Art Spiegelman (the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Maus), Geoffrey Hayes, Jay Lynch, Dean Haspiel and Eleanor Davis. Toon Books promotes itself as "the first high-quality comics designed for children ages four and up." Calvin Reid announced the collection in Publishers Weekly in 2007 as having the potential to revitalize the field of comics for kids: "Françoise Mouly is at it again. After transforming American comics with the seminal 1980s comics anthology RAW, Mouly is now out to teach kids to read by using comics." 2008 saw the launch of eight titles, each of which received glowing reviews and multiple awards, prizes, and distinctions. When it first launched, TOON Books was distributed by Diamond Books, a unit of Diamond Comics dedicated to getting comics and graphic novels into the book trade. In 2010, TOON Books entered into a distribution partnership with Candlewick Press.
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