Ah, the celebration of the country that writes just for the child in all of us! As I'm sure you know, the "graphic novel" was popularized (and perhaps even invented?) in Belgium, and characters such as the Smurfs, Tintin and Lucky Luke have become world famous--and more than just characters for our boys now that we're immersed in this culture--they are friends. What better way to celebrate literature ("Uh, ah-hem, LITERATURE?", you say? To my 8 year old the answer is a resounding "YEAH!") than to go to the Belgian Centre for Comic Strip Art...a 4000 square meter display space in a wonderful art nouveau building complete with a library, book store, brasserie (restaurant) and really neat artifacts, props and mock-up stages featuring the characters they know and some they will meet soon in the future.It was a perfect activity for a rainy (see the coat on D here in this picture) saturday afternoon--artists could spend days in this place but our 90 minutes was just about right. We had fun camping it up here and there within the displays...Malcolm got to see an Asterix almost the size of him, be a living portrait and touch the moon rocket of Tintin's; Duncan played at being an astronaut, dodging bullets in a saloon from Lucky Luke's mighty fast gun and experiencing an ancient Roman electrical storm over Pompeii. Here's a snap of each of the boys in some of those situations...The only regret anyone (okay, it was Malcolm) voiced was "How come there's no Spiderman or X-Men, Dad?"
Check out Matthew's blog for an enlightening take on Grand Place through the eyes of our children--our Sunday activity this week. www.matthewzadow.com and click on blog within the banner.
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