Graphic Novels @ Your Library!
I think at times that graphic novels are seen merely as a teen genre, at least by some.
I also think that’s a mistake.
Yes, graphic novels are wonderful in getting tweens and teens reading and are especially good for encouraging struggling or reluctant readers to read. But I don’t think we should overlook the value that graphic novels – even those intended for children and teens – have for our older crowds, like me.
To be honest, I am a relatively recent convert to the genre.
I’m not a big fiction reader, though I have my favorites, but graphic novels aren’t just for fiction either. They also work really well as history and memoir. With that in mind, I’d like to pass along a few recommendations for graphic novels that are worth a read. (By no means are they the only ones so designated.)
The March trilogy by Congressman John Lewis
The son of Alabama sharecroppers who was born during segregation, Congressman Lewis has played a pivotal role in the Civil Rights Movement in this country. His contributions are well known, from his speech at the March on Washington in 1963 (leading up to Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech) to his helping to lead hundreds of peaceful protestors over the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, to his more than 40 arrests for peacefully protesting injustice and so much more.
In recent years, Congressman Lewis has teamed up with illustrators Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell to chronicle his story and, in doing so, take readers of all ages on his journey.
The third book in the March trilogy was released earlier this year and was awarded the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. The Lafourche Parish Public Library owns each of the books in this series, the first of which begins at the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
Maus by Art Spiegelman
A cartoonist, Spiegelman is the son of Jewish Holocaust survivors, and Maus is Spiegelman’s record of his father Vladek’s memories of his life in Poland under Nazi rule, including his time in the infamous Auschwitz concentration camp. It’s also Spiegelman’s attempt to come to terms himself with his parents’ experiences at the hands of the Nazis. Spiegelman uses as his title the German word for “mouse.” In this graphic novel classic, he portrays Nazis as cats; Jews as mice. As with any Holocaust literature, the subject matter is a difficult one, but an important one. In 1992, Spiegelman was awarded a Pulitzer Prize Special Citation for Maus.
Pyongyang: A Journey into North Korea by Guy Delisle
North Korea is referred to in many ways: the Hermit Kingdom; an Axis of Evil; and by North Korean officials, as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, although many outside North Korea would agree that the secretive and often belligerent government of North Korea is hardly a democratic one.
Not many Westerners ever see North Korea, but some trickle in, like Guy Delisle, a cartoonist on a work visa with a French animation company for two months. If you’ve ever viewed a documentary centered on North Korea, you’ll know that documentarians are not allowed free access to travel around the country; they are led by North Korean guides who decide what they will see and with whom they will speak. Delisle’s two months in Pyongyang, North Korea’s capital city, make for a remarkable look, in graphic novel format, of life there – and, in a way, of life in North Korea as North Korea would like us to believe. As Delisle illustrates, that isn’t necessarily the case.
All of these graphic novels – and many more – are available from your library.