Get Graphic @ your library
an introduction by Francisca Goldsmith

At Berkeley (Calif.) Public Library,  we’ve been collecting and circulating graphic novels for teens since 1989. Then, in 1992, Art Speigelman (Maus) won a Pulitzer Prize, and local high school teachers warmed to the idea that literature in sequential art format could be powerful and deserving of critical attention. As a lifelong bookworm with a palate for everything from comics to classical philosophy, I really wanted to start up a graphic novel collection. The kids in town clearly wanted it, too, wasting no time in teaching me about manga, an area of graphic novel reading with which I had no experience until 1994, when I invited the members of the library’s teen advisory group to one of our regular off-the-shelf buying trips to the local comic book dealer. We all struck paydirt, however, when the library hired a cataloger who never saw a classification challenge she didn’t want to grab: that’s when our collection began to get a level of subject classification that put it right in league with the attention offered art books and literary nonfiction. Now we have a graphic novel collection visible on the shelf, in the catalog, in classrooms when staff booktalks, and—most important of all—scattered among the bookbags and desktops of teens all over town.

Every picture (as well as the words) helps tell part of the story in a graphic novel. It is the dynamic format of image and word offered in combination that delivers meaning and enjoyment to graphic novel readers. Whether fiction or factual, graphic novels rely on visual components and verbal text to communicate. Graphic novel readers have learned to understand not only print, but can also decode facial and body expressions, the symbolic meanings of certain images and postures, metaphors and similes, and other social and literary nuances teenagers are mastering as they move from childhood to maturity. Picture books combine images with words. While the illustrations repeat the verbal text in a picture book, the sequential art within a graphic novel tells germane aspects of the narrative that the words do not. The reader is called upon to understand what is happening in and between the sequences of images (the panels of a graphic novel), as well as have access to the verbal text. Like any other esthetic insightfulness, the ability to “read” images that portray character, mood, and tone must be developed through experience. The term “graphic novel” is used by many librarians to identify all such image-and-word codependent works, but keep in mind that the format supports as many genres as does plain print text: fantasy and science fiction (James Robinson’s Starman), young adult “problem novels” (Bryan Talbot’s The Tale of One Bad Rat), short stories (Mark Murphy’s House of Java), horror (Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman), light series fiction (Rumiko Takahashi’s Ranma 1/2), humor (Jeff Smith’s Bone), biography (Ho Che Anderson’s King), autobiography (Katherine Arnoldi’s The Amazing True Story of a Teenage Single Mom), popular history (Rick Geary’s The Borden Tragedy), literature in translation (Vittorio Giardino’s A Jew in Communist Prague), and social issues (Judd Winick’s Pedro and Me). In short, there are graphic novel possibilities for every reading taste and interest—just as there are all types of reading options for teens in more traditional formats.

This section of the Teen Reading Web Site is a gold mine of information about graphic novels and comics. It contains a list of Web sites and articles about graphic novels and comics and links to Web pages about careers in graphic arts in the Resources section; information on collection development; different ways to celebrate, including programming ideas from years past as well as ideas specific to this year’s theme, Get Graphic @ your library™. Enjoy!