Even more graphic novels!

Do you think I like graphic novels? I seem to be reading them a lot lately! They are very good, quick reads, so I really enjoy reading them when I am having trouble getting through a longer book. I would like to tell you about three graphic novels in this post, each unique, and each wonderful in its own way.

You might have read or heard about Gene Luen Yang from his critically acclaimed American Born Chinese graphic novel. I read that a couple years ago and loved it. When I saw The Eternal Smile and Level up (I will write about Level Up in a different post), I snatched them up! The Eternal Smile is three separate, very different stories. The only similarity is that they all have HUGE plot twists. The first, called "Duncan's Kingdom" starts in a magical kingdom where a young man has to win the princess's heart by killing the king of the frogs and bringing back his head. This story ends in a very different place than it started and I thought was the best of the three stories. The second story, "Gran'pa Greenbax and the Eternal Smile" is about an old, greedy frog (kind of a Scrooge figure), who is always looking for ways to make more money so when he jumps into his vat of gold, his head won't touch the bottom. This was my least favorite of the three stories, although the ending is somewhat redeaming. The last story, "Urgent Request" is about a young woman who is trying to get a promotion at her job. After being denied, she gets an email from a young prince in Africa, asking to transfer millions of dollars into her bank account. She naively sends all her back account information to him and next time she checks, her back account is empty. She continues email him and send him money, but is she really as naive as we think?

If you have children or have ever read to them, you may recognize the name Jane Yolen from the How Do Dinasaurs Say Goodnight? series. She writes A TON and has even written a graphic novel called Foiled. This was a great story about an NYC teen misfit, Aliera, whose passion is fencing. She doesn't have too many friends, let alone a boyfriend, so when her hot lab partner asks her on a date, she accepts. Meanwhile, her mother is a chronic garage sale shopper and bargained her way into a new practice foil that Aliera needed. The foil has a gaudy ruby superglued to the hilt. Aliera tries to remove it, but can't. When she meets Avery for the date, she discovers a whole new world within the one she knows, and Avery isn't who she thought he was. This was a very interesting story that I really hope continues in the future!

I think that Shaun Tan is one of the most creative people alive today. His stories are so interesting and are all allegorical. He has even made some of his graphic novels into short films, one of which won the Oscar for best short! This Oscar winning short, "The Lost Thing", appears in the book I read last night with my daughter, Zoe. The book is called Lost and Found. The first story in the book is called "The Red Tree" is more of a poem. It is quite beautiful, about bad days. "The Lost Thing" is the second story and is about a boy who is looking for bottle caps to add to his collection. Instead of finding bottle caps he find a thing that is lost. He plays with the thing and ends up taking it home. His parents don't want the thing in the house, so the boy takes it out to the shed. Where do lost things belong? That is what the boy has to figure out. "The Rabbits" is the last story and its words were written by John Marsden and tells a very common story of taking over another's land. Shaun Tan is Australian, so I imagine it is an allegory of the British and Aboriginals, though it is much the same story as the British and the Native Americans. It is really good, but very obvious in what it's about. It is worth reading just for the pictures, as are all of Shaun Tan's stories. He is a truly amazing artist!

A sad return from Mexico....

I have to admit, returning home from Mexico is one of the more heartbreaking things I've done in a long time. It didn't help that we were leaving 80 degrees of sunny awesomeness and coming home to 20 degrees of cold, gray, snowyness! But I did it, and I'm back. I only finished one book and one play since my last post.

I started reading Ellen Hopkins a couple years ago and quickly ate up the majority of her books. They are all written in stark and visually stimulating poetry. They all tackle very tough subjects, from drug use to mental issues, disfunctional families to molestation. The book I finished this afternoon is called Fallout and is the third in a trilogy based on her own daughter's experiences. Now, these books are largely fictional, but many of the big events actually happened. The first two books, Crank and Glass follow Kristina into her addiction to crystal methamphetamine and how it destroys her life and her self and lands her in jail and with kids she can't support. Fallout introduces us to Kristina's oldest three children and tell their story. This book takes a look into their future, as she wrote them older than they really are, but her purpose was to give voice to the children of addicts. She does that amazingly well. I will continue to read her books as long as she writes them, no matter how tough the subject.

I also read The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare. I first read this play in tenth grade for English and remember it as the one I liked the best. I read it again to see if it still held the same appeal. I was highly amused by much of it, but there were definitely things that I didn't find as amusing... like the premise that a woman has to be tamed... or that a man governs when and what a woman eats and are at their beck and call. I understand that I have to take this in it's timeframe, but that doesn't mean I have to like it. I still enjoyed reading it, as there are many funny parts, although the whole premise for the play is never finished! At the beginning, a lord has his men take a drunkard up to his room and has them treat him like the lord. Then he has players come in and perform the play. It never goes back to the drunkard!

Finally, I just want to say congratulations to Shaun Tan for his Oscar! I haven't seen the short, The Lost Thing, but I've read a couple of his graphic novels and they are AWESOME! The Arrival is a story in pictures, but it is beautiful and I've always wanted to use it with my students. Tales from Outer Suburbia tells short, odd and interesting tales. They are charming and fun to read. I'll be looking for his other books in the future!