CMIS Evaluation Fiction Focus

David Small’s graphic memoir Stitches has been named as a finalist in the Young People’s Literature category of the 2009 US National Book Awards.

While there has been some debate as to whether this is the right category for his story, there is no doubting the power of it, as the book trailer reveals. You could do worse than to use the simplicity of this trailer as a starting point to analyse how other graphic novels / memoirs are constructed. There is no sign of publication of Stitches in Australia yet, but it looks like one to watch for.

The CMIS database has a list of graphic novels and memoirs here.

From the GetGraphic site…

Get Graphic: The World in Words and Pictures is a community-wide two year project designed to introduce teens, parents, librarians and teachers to the exciting and extremely popular literary format of graphic novels.

The Teachers and Librarians pages include resources and extensive links to online materials to support units of work on graphic novels.

A comprehensive List of Graphic Novel Titles is available.

Check out the rss feed page for available feeds and information about how to subscribe using rss readers.

Useful links to online resources are availabe at our CMIS delicious account – Graphic_Novels. [These sites were tagged during September 2008 to provide links to resources to support teachers, teacher librarians and library staff involved in the selection and integration of graphic novels in classroom programs and school library collections.]

The CMIS Resource Bank contains reviews of over 60 graphic novels

And Neil Gaiman changed the world. From the i09 SciFi site.

There is growing controversy in Canada about the Governor General’s Awards. Mariko Tamaki has been shortlisted for SKIM, a graphic novel. Fair enough – it’s the first in the genre to have been nominated for these awards and by all accounts it’s an outstanding work that has received many accolades. The problem is that the illustrator, Mariko’s cousin Jillian, has been snubbed. Not listed for the award, not invited to the ceremony next week. And people have noticed. Canada’s leading graphic novelists, Chester Brown and Seth, have written an open letter in support of Jillian’s role. It seems the judges have looked at the literary merit of SKIM’s text in isolation from the illustrations.

We’re guessing that the jury who read SKIM saw it as an illustrated novel.  It’s not;  it’s a graphic novel.  In illustrated novels, the words carry the burden of telling the story, and the illustrations serve as a form of visual reinforcement. But in graphic novels, the words and pictures BOTH tell the story, and there are often sequences (sometimes whole graphic novels) where the images alone convey the narrative.  The text of a graphic novel cannot be separated from its illustrations because the words and the pictures together ARE the text.  Try to imagine evaluating SKIM if you couldn’t see the drawings.  Jillian’s contribution to the book goes beyond mere illustration:  she was as responsible for telling the story as Mariko was.

Tough call for Jillian, and a bittersweet success for Mariko should she win the Children’s Literature category when the awards are announced on Tuesday.

Latest in the Guardian’s Top Ten series is graphic novels. US comic book editor and writer Danny Fingeroth has selected his Top 10 of the genre.

The first two on his list, Maus and Persepolis, have been reviewed in Fiction Focus. Alice in Sunderland, which comes in ninth spot, will be reviewed soon. Others are older titles, or not necessarily YA, but the list is interesting.

Coincidentally, Clare Snowball, a PhD student at Curtin University, today posted a terrific piece on her blog about challenges to graphic novels in libraries. It’s here.