With Comics Plus®, you have unlimited access to thousands of digital comics, graphic novels, and manga. The Children's Library collection includes popular and award-winning titles for readers aged 14 and under, like Avatar: The Last Airbender; Big Nate; Disney Descendants; Geronimo Stilton; Goosebumps; Nancy Drew; Phoebe and Her Unicorn; Quince; Sonic the Hedgehog; and more.
Every title is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for offline reading -- no waiting on holds lists, no wasting data! Comics are also available in the LibraryPass app from the App Store or Google Play.
For more information on how ComicsPlus works, take a look at the video below.
Age Ratings
ComicsPlus provides age ratings to help readers, families, and teachers find age-appropriate comics to read. To see the rating for a title, hover over the book cover and look at the top left corner of the image:
Here's a breakdown of what these ratings mean. For more details, see ComicsPlus's Age Appropriate Guidelines.
Children (K-3/Ages 5-7)
- Readers: Beginning and early readers in preschool, kindergarten, and early elementary school; reluctant and remedial readers in elementary.
- Format: Easy readers and picture books; comic books with simplified panel layouts, including comic strips.
- Language: Simplified word balloons; no swearing.
- Content: Story intensity, action, and violence should be similar to G-rated movies, while reflecting age-appropriate experiences.
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Kids (Gr 3-5/Ages 8-10)
- Readers: Elementary school age readers; reluctant and remedial readers in elementary through early middle school.
- Format: Regular comic books and manga with simplified panel layouts, including comic strips.
- Language: While some readers in this range can handle mild profanity, particularly in a humorous context, every family has different rules about swearing, so a very conservative approach is required at this level.
- Content: Story intensity, action, and violence should be similar to PG-rated movies, while reflecting age-appropriate experiences. Romantic relationships and scenes of affection between partners (hugging, holding hands) are age-appropriate; emphasizing beauty, hypersexualized appearances, sexual behaviors, and stereotyped sexual roles is not age-appropriate. Drinking, drugs, smoking, and risky stunts aren’t age-appropriate.
- Educational value: Readers in this age range will benefit from content that supports school-readiness, including social-emotional skills such as self-control. Older children are often reading for pleasure, so stories can build on school lessons from a full range of subjects, including history and science. Stories should expose them to diverse experiences; encourage them to think about other people’s lives; or teach them about different times and places.
Teen (Gr 6-8/Ages 11-14)
- Readers: Active readers in upper elementary and middle school; reluctant and remedial readers in high school.
- Format: Comic books, manga, hybrid prose/comics; more sophisticated panel layouts.
- Language: Mild profanity is age-appropriate in small doses, but every family has different rules about swearing, so a relatively conservative approach is observed.
- Content: Story intensity, action, and violence should be equivalent to a typical PG-13 rated movie, while also reflecting a typical middle grader’s life experiences. Historical contexts of violence, including violence experienced by particular social groups, are considered age-appropriate. Humor may come at the expense of authority, and poop jokes and other potty humor are considered age-appropriate. Kissing and dating are age-appropriate; partial or full nudity and simulated sex are not. Disrespectful portrayals of characters as sexual objects or as sexual aggressors are not age-appropriate, nor is humor that relies on these themes.
- Educational value: Readers in this range are often reading for pleasure, so stories can build on school lessons from a full range of subjects, including history and science, and can expose them to diverse experiences, encourage them to think about other people’s lives and viewpoints, or teach them about different times and places.
Availability:
This resource is available only in Madison libraries and remotely to patrons with Madison Public Library as their home library.