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    These are... not books.
    you don't have to mentally picture the scenes/people/actions
I sort of see what you're saying, even if I don't agree with it. I think the really neat thing about these, are that they present _classic stories_ in a way that is more appealing, and more easily digestible, to kids who might never have considered them otherwise.

I remember when I was in middle school, my English teacher had a box in the corner of comic book adaptations of about a dozen "classic" stories. Several were stories by Poe, and similar 1800s-era classics. (Dracula, Sherlock Holmes, etc.) I devoured them (despite loving reading "regular" books too). I've forgotten most of the plots, but remember having enjoyed reading them. Some of them, I've never read the originals, but for others I had already read (or subsequently read) the more-detailed originals. (Anything Sherlock Holmes, at the time, was something I enjoyed.)

Reading these stories as a manga makes you lose out on a lot of details, but probably makes it a lot easier to digest some things. Pride and Prejudice, for example, has pages of details of peoples' social lives, and the complex interactions of several younger and older women, along with descriptions of gardens and houses, and I know that I definitely had trouble keeping track of who all the ancillary characters were. Having visual representations of these characters might make it easier to track that. You lose out on the richness of Austen's prose, but you keep the core character developments, relationships, and emotional interactions that form the basis of the stories.



That makes a while since I've read physical books, but the great things I liked when I was a child was books with illustrations. Not the one with a picture every two pages, but one that tries to paint the atmosphere of the books. For short fictions (150 pages), I'm OK with the cover, but for anything longer a few full pages pictures kinda kept me in. It anchored me in the story.

I'd enjoyed The Malazan Book of the Fallen more if I had this edition: https://subterraneanpress.com/erikson-gotm/




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