A very playful way to read French is through 
les bandes dessinées . As with novels, there are different levels of difficulty but the advantage of comics is that you can use pictures to help you understand the plot!
Note: we translate bande dessinées as « comics » in English but the two are actually quite different in form and content.
In Europe, one country has been the precursor and leader of this literary genre: la Belgique 
.
Most of the French-speaking comics you know are Belgian. The first one, Tintin , was created in the 30’s and for years, all the bandes-dessinées franco-belges will follow this model with pages with well ordered boxes (= des cases) and bubbles (= des bulles).
Here are a few names you may have already heard:
-
Les Schtroumpfs:
Funny little blue men living in community in the forest. You must know them but their name is different in each country : what are they called in your country?! -
Lucky Luke:
A lonely cowboy who brings justice to the (parodic) Far West. -
Astérix:
The adventures of Astérix and Obélix and their small Gallic village fighting against the Roman invaders. -
Gaston Lagaffe:
A very clumsy anti-hero who prefers to invent funny things rather than work. -
Blake et Mortimer:
The adventures of two friends, one leading the British counter-espionage services and the other being an eminent scientist. -
Thorgal:
More recent. It follows the adventures of a Scandinavian warrior. It’s one of my favorites!
If the bandes-dessinées were originally intended for children, today there are BD for all tastes! New formats and alternative modes of narration have emerged… but I will talk about them in another post!
Et vous, avez-vous déjà lu une bande-dessinée en français ? 
And you fellow tutors, what are your favorite classic BD? 
Thank you for the recommendations 
.
