Graphic Novels

We just finished putting the new display out in the library—several new graphic novels. I don’t really understand the popularity of graphic novels. Some of them seem…sort of…graphic??? I read somewhere that 40 percent of material printed in Japan is in the graphic novel format. I guess everyone from children to the elderly read them. I’m having trouble imagining that…guess that I need to travel to Japan and see it for myself…

I did read one graphic novel that really stuck with me. The Arrival by Shaun Tan is a wordless graphic novel. It is filled with absolutely beautiful pictures showing a man who travels to a distant land and tries to make a life for his family. It is reminiscent of the late 1800s in some ways, but it is also interspersed with futuristic images and strange creatures. The Arrival received many awards and nominations in Australia. I’m not sure that I understood it completely, but it was timeless in the way it portrayed the immigrant spirit surviving in a foreign land.

I haven’t quite figured out manga yet…just can’t make myself read from back to front and right to left. I keep getting lost on the page because I revert back to the American way of reading. However, we have several fun new manga (hope I’m using that term correctly) graphic novels. Sorcerers and Secretaries by Amy Kim Ganter and The Plain Janes by Cecil Castelluci (really liked Boy Proof) both caught my attention. Neither was particularly deep, but fun reads!