Last February, Sport’Aide launched The Adventures of Cindy, an educational book based on comic strips published for the past two years in Les Explorateurs magazine. These rewritten comic strips contain the unwritten story of Cindy Ouellet: A true story worthy of the greatest Marvel heroes. The Adventures of Cindy has it all: hardships , resilience and strength of character. The book’s originality was designed to give the readers a tool to go with the reading and discussion to ensure that the exercise is both educational and fun.
Parent-child relationship
Parents have a crucial role to play in their child’s overall development as the parent-child relationship is linked to most of today’s hot topics (Pepler & al., 2012).
The quality of the parent-child relationship is based in large part on the time invested in the relationship (Putnam, 2016). For example, family suppers have been identified as having an impact on the majority of the indicators mentioned above (Musick & al., 2012). Nevertheless, another opportunity not to miss to connect with your child would be the famous bedtime story (Putnam, 2016). Not only is reading to your child before bedtime a great opportunity to spend a special moment with them, but it also prepares the child for academic success since reading is one of the most determining factors (Royer, 2010; Waldfogel & al., 2011). The Adventures of Cindy can be a great tool for parents which can be proposed by teachers or coaches.
Academic and sports literacy
We also know that it is harder to get boys interested in reading and it is one of the reasons that explains why girls are twice as likely as boys to succeed at school in Quebec (Royer, 2010). The Adventures of Cindy was designed to be interesting for boys, being a body of short comic strips focusing on sports and social interactions (Royer, 2010). That said, there’s also something in it for girls, since our heroine, Cindy Ouellet, is a remarkable model of educational and sporting success. The book could help girls discover the world of sport in which they don’t often see themselves in. In fact, only 3% of sports coverage in the major newspapers is devoted to women (ÉgaleAction, 2014). The Adventures of Cindy offers our girls and the sports community the opportunity to discover an inspiring athlete and one of our greatest hidden treasures.
Personal development
The Adventures of Cindy is also an opportunity to develop a range of skills, such as leadership, cooperation, resilience and self-awareness. These skills are crucial to success in sports, at school, at work and in life in general. Several studies have also shown that the development of these skills was once again associated with the great majority of the topics mentioned above (Durlak & al., 2011; OCDE, 2015; Taylor & al., 2017).
The central theme of the comic strip is experiencing bullying as a victim, instigator or bystander. Above all, the book opens the door to a discussion on this delicate theme when we know that children have a hard time expressing their thoughts on the subject. These discussions could lead to confidences that would not have otherwise been possible. The child can therefore seek the help needed to solve their problems and protect themselves against the negative effects related to these issues (Elgar & al., 2014).
Opening a dialogue
As you can tell, the book was designed based on the results of the most recent research with an opened-dialogue view. Considering the impact that it could have on the development of the parent-child relationship, academic and sports literacy, social and emotional skills and the prevention of bullying, we believe that The Adventures of Cindy represents an important milestone.
We hope that you find The Adventures of Cindy to be a positive and enriching reading experience.
Alexandre Baril
Copywriter The Adventures of Cindy
