It's not uncommon for parents to come home and find their kid reading a comic book.
But these days, it might be for homework.
"The content isn't just superheroes and zombies, although that has its place," said Stephanie Gabelmann, director of Boonton Holmes Public Library in Boonton, N.J., in a phone interview.
Gabelmann spoke on a panel about comics and the Common Core at New York Comic Con last week. "There's a huge amount of comics about science, history and even math. Students are getting the information, but in a different way."
For example, there's the newly released "March: Book One," the first in the autobiographic graphic novel trilogy from Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., about the civil rights movement. Another oft-cited example: Art Spiegelman's Holocaust narrative "Maus," which in 1992 became the first graphic novel to win the Pulitzer Prize.