Graphic Novels

If you haven't read a graphic novel before, I highly recommend them. They're an awesome combination of comic book and novel. They can deal with the serious content of a novel, yet still have the engaging artwork of a comic book.

For example, one of my favorite graphic novels is Maus by Art Spielgelman. The story recounts the struggle of Art's father to survive the Holocaust as a Jew in Poland. Jewish people are depicted as mice in the book while the Nazis are cats. Despite the seemingly comical look at the Holocaust, it's actually a memoir of real events experienced by real people.

Plus, I thought it was brilliant. And I'm pretty picky.

I also wanted to talk about the graphic novels owned by the Marriott Library. We have a fairly extensive of this genre in our Browsing Collection as well as some scattered throughout the main collection and the curriculum library, which is where we have quite a few books for young adult readers.

A few particular favorites of mine (and I'm about to reveal my geekly love of all things science fiction, fantasy, and paranormal) are:

Sloth. YALSA, the Young Adult Library Service Association, voted this one of the top graphic novels of 2007. For the complete list, click here.

Genius Girl 1: Agatha Heterodyne & The Beetleburg Clank. This is the first in an ongoing steampunk series about a Victorian girl with the ability to manipulate physics and mechanics with her mind. The first story introduces you to a historical world like ours, but not. It's alternative history. What could have happened if certain things or events had turned out differently. One of my favorite genres, and the artwork is interesting.

You can look both of these up by doing a search for their titles in the Marriott Library Catalog.