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graphic novels
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From: CARTER Kate <katec>
Date: Tue, 13 Apr 2004 09:52:11 -0700
I wasn't planning on joining in, but I can't help it. I greatly enjoy reading graphic novels. I loved reading comics as a kid and remember one big fat book my parents bought that was the history of the comic strip with lots of different strips to read-?ntastic! I loved Tintin and Asterix. I read Spiegelman's Maus as a college student and loved it for both story and history. My college economics professor assigned a text book which was translated from the Japanese. To my surprise it included manga to further explain economic principles and the story portion of this text book helped me to better understand economics (not enough to get a great grade, but that's why I'm not an economist). Now I've discovered Little Vampire books, Little Lit, Ethel and Ernest
(Raymond Briggs' biography of his parents), Usagi Yojimbo series(a samurai who happens to be a rabbit. other characters are animals as well), and Blankets, to name a few.
There was a comment about taking longer to read/process a page due to the dual nature of the story. Admittedly, you can't get the whole story without checking out the artwork while also reading the text. I tend to concentrate more on the text, and there are times I'm caught up in the text portion of the story and forget all about the accompanying pictures. Often I'll find a spot to break from the text and go back to investigate what happened in the artwork. I don't know if it takes me longer to read a graphic novel than a "regular" book. Some graphic novels I pick up and skim just to have an idea of what we're purchasing. Just as I read Secrets of Droon or Dear America so I have an idea of what kids may be reading, I read graphic novels. If we don't have a variety of books to suggest to readers, we'll lose them. I'm happy to say my library purchases these and even created new call numbers this year--GN and ygn(young adult graphic novel)--to help patrons identify these materials and locate them. There isn't a designated section in the children's section; graphic novels end up primarily in fiction, although the nonfiction section houses Little Lit.
I hope that teachers and librarians will share graphic novels with children, teens, parents, and education and library school students. We keep learning how brains work and how one person may process information differently than the next. Without graphic novels, we're excluding readers who may think differently than we do and who may process more easily the dual nature of a graphic novel than a book composed only of text. And aren't graphic novels a good transition from picture books to novels? A good picture book tells its story using both text and artwork. The Caldecott Medal is awarded to the artist, but part of the criteria is the artwork interpreting the story (if I remember correctly). Isn't the marriage of artwork and text the mark of a good graphic novel as well?
Kate Carter Youth Librarian, Central Library Multnomah County Library 801 SW 10th Portland, OR 97201 503?8R35 katec at multcolib.org
Message----From: Monica R. Edinger [mailto:edinger at dalton.org] Sent: Tuesday, April 13, 2004 3:27 AM To: Barbara Tobin Cc: ccbc-net at ccbc.education.wisc.edu Subject: Re: [ccbc-net] graphic novels
Barbara Tobin writes:
I'm so curious about this. These students did not read comics? In the Sunday papers? (When we moved to New York from St. Louis when I was 15 I was horrified to discover our local paper had no funnies; still doesn't.) Archie comics? Garfield? Superman? Donald Duck?
What exactly are their objections? Is it the really old one that comics are bad for you? That they aren't literature? Was it the YA content or the particular structure and look of the ones they studied?
If I were to present these wonderful publications to teachers I'd probably do it historically. Go back to the early comics
(hmmmm....anyone know what is the earliest comic? Is it related to chapbooks?): Krazy Kat, the Katzenjammer Kids (spelling?), Little Nemo, super heroes, Little Nemo, and move on to Tin Tin, Asterix, Feiffer, and so on. Also, I'd have them consider them as something between a picture book and a novel without pictures. I'd give them all sorts to consider
(including C. Underpants!). The range is so great and so wonderful. Short, long, b/w, color....
I'm turning into a comic zealot (who'd a thunk it? - lightbulb going on over head), but the relative silence here (or is everyone just recovering from Easter!?) and the response of these students reinforces my sense that this is a form of publication that needs to be much better known and appreciated beyond one extreme or the other.
Monica (who cannot shut up it seems!)
Monica Edinger The Dalton School New York NY edinger at dalton.org monicaedinger at yahoo.com
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Received on Tue 13 Apr 2004 11:52:11 AM CDT
Date: Tue, 13 Apr 2004 09:52:11 -0700
I wasn't planning on joining in, but I can't help it. I greatly enjoy reading graphic novels. I loved reading comics as a kid and remember one big fat book my parents bought that was the history of the comic strip with lots of different strips to read-?ntastic! I loved Tintin and Asterix. I read Spiegelman's Maus as a college student and loved it for both story and history. My college economics professor assigned a text book which was translated from the Japanese. To my surprise it included manga to further explain economic principles and the story portion of this text book helped me to better understand economics (not enough to get a great grade, but that's why I'm not an economist). Now I've discovered Little Vampire books, Little Lit, Ethel and Ernest
(Raymond Briggs' biography of his parents), Usagi Yojimbo series(a samurai who happens to be a rabbit. other characters are animals as well), and Blankets, to name a few.
There was a comment about taking longer to read/process a page due to the dual nature of the story. Admittedly, you can't get the whole story without checking out the artwork while also reading the text. I tend to concentrate more on the text, and there are times I'm caught up in the text portion of the story and forget all about the accompanying pictures. Often I'll find a spot to break from the text and go back to investigate what happened in the artwork. I don't know if it takes me longer to read a graphic novel than a "regular" book. Some graphic novels I pick up and skim just to have an idea of what we're purchasing. Just as I read Secrets of Droon or Dear America so I have an idea of what kids may be reading, I read graphic novels. If we don't have a variety of books to suggest to readers, we'll lose them. I'm happy to say my library purchases these and even created new call numbers this year--GN and ygn(young adult graphic novel)--to help patrons identify these materials and locate them. There isn't a designated section in the children's section; graphic novels end up primarily in fiction, although the nonfiction section houses Little Lit.
I hope that teachers and librarians will share graphic novels with children, teens, parents, and education and library school students. We keep learning how brains work and how one person may process information differently than the next. Without graphic novels, we're excluding readers who may think differently than we do and who may process more easily the dual nature of a graphic novel than a book composed only of text. And aren't graphic novels a good transition from picture books to novels? A good picture book tells its story using both text and artwork. The Caldecott Medal is awarded to the artist, but part of the criteria is the artwork interpreting the story (if I remember correctly). Isn't the marriage of artwork and text the mark of a good graphic novel as well?
Kate Carter Youth Librarian, Central Library Multnomah County Library 801 SW 10th Portland, OR 97201 503?8R35 katec at multcolib.org
Message----From: Monica R. Edinger [mailto:edinger at dalton.org] Sent: Tuesday, April 13, 2004 3:27 AM To: Barbara Tobin Cc: ccbc-net at ccbc.education.wisc.edu Subject: Re: [ccbc-net] graphic novels
Barbara Tobin writes:
I'm so curious about this. These students did not read comics? In the Sunday papers? (When we moved to New York from St. Louis when I was 15 I was horrified to discover our local paper had no funnies; still doesn't.) Archie comics? Garfield? Superman? Donald Duck?
What exactly are their objections? Is it the really old one that comics are bad for you? That they aren't literature? Was it the YA content or the particular structure and look of the ones they studied?
If I were to present these wonderful publications to teachers I'd probably do it historically. Go back to the early comics
(hmmmm....anyone know what is the earliest comic? Is it related to chapbooks?): Krazy Kat, the Katzenjammer Kids (spelling?), Little Nemo, super heroes, Little Nemo, and move on to Tin Tin, Asterix, Feiffer, and so on. Also, I'd have them consider them as something between a picture book and a novel without pictures. I'd give them all sorts to consider
(including C. Underpants!). The range is so great and so wonderful. Short, long, b/w, color....
I'm turning into a comic zealot (who'd a thunk it? - lightbulb going on over head), but the relative silence here (or is everyone just recovering from Easter!?) and the response of these students reinforces my sense that this is a form of publication that needs to be much better known and appreciated beyond one extreme or the other.
Monica (who cannot shut up it seems!)
Monica Edinger The Dalton School New York NY edinger at dalton.org monicaedinger at yahoo.com
~ ~ ~ To send a reply to the entire CCBC-Net community,click on...
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mailto:ccbc-net-unsub at ccbc.education.wisc.edu
Received on Tue 13 Apr 2004 11:52:11 AM CDT
