Posts
I love this headline. Like many libraries around the country, school libraries in Maine are meeting mixed reactions to their graphic novel collections: "The purpose is to lure young readers to libraries by giving them what they want. But some people dispute the value of books that feature female characters dressed in sexy outfits and sometimes behaving in ways that conform to sexist stereotypes."
Happily, so far the discussion seems to be pretty reasonable (unlike some other recent objections to books by Chris Crutcher and Lois Lowry):
Rawding, the parent of a boy at King, says she has questioned McDaniel about the appropriateness of having the graphic novels in the library.
Nevertheless, her son loves the books, and she believes they are the reason he's becoming interested in reading conventional novels.
She checks each graphic novel before he reads it, she says, and they discuss it together. At least he's not hiding the books, she says. "At this age, I'd rather keep everything out on the table."
Read the rest.
14 March 2005
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
It all depends on the graphic novel! Like all literary forms it can range right across the spectrum, but things like the (sometimes disturbingly) autobiographical "Blankets," or the Nobel Prize winning "Maus," or Miyazaki's seminal classic "Nausicaa" are of profound and weighty literary merit and a good counter-argument against those who'd dismiss all "comics."
Post a Comment