Table of contents for Booklist's Guide to Graphic Novels in Libraries, 2024 in Booklist

As in prior years of Booklist’s Guide to Graphic Novels in Libraries, you’re going to read a lot about bans and challenges of comics, graphic novels, and manga in this issue, and that’s to be expected—book and library news continues to be dominated by stories of individual pages or panels thoughtlessly taken out of context and made the subject of angry media campaigns that paint comics with a broad (and inaccurate) brush. But fans of the format know that’s precisely the wrong way to read comics: these books deserve careful attention and deliberate reading, and that attention is rewarding. Jenna Spiering, in her article on p.33, writes about how slowing down to appreciate the richness of a comics page is a skill that can help students take their time to…

As the popularity of graphic novels among college students gains traction, graphic medicine is emerging as a powerful educational tool. Under this umbrella are graphic memoirs, instructional texts, and works of fiction that tackle some of the most delicate and sometimes controversial topics. They do so in an easily accessible way for scholars and students alike. Whereas text can be esoteric, opaque, and intimidating, graphic depictions are familiar, relatable, and inviting. This makes the format well-suited as an introductory resource for patrons with an interest in Disability Studies and Awareness as well as Sexual and Reproductive Health. Disability Studies: Establishing the Need At the University of San Francisco, faculty and librarians have had increasing requests to acquire resources about disabilities. With greater awareness of visible and invisible disabilities in contemporary…

Welcome to the Manga Library Welcome to the university’s manga library, a branch dedicated to comics from Japan. For first-year students, we have curated a special collection to support education, research, and personal development. Chart topping My Hero Academia, a battle shōnen series taking place in a high school for superheroes, and bestselling Horimiya, a webcomic turned anime presenting the teen romance of stunning Hori and loner Miyamura, focus on the adventures of adolescence with little space for what comes after. A review of top-selling manga in North America would reveal much of the same: fantastical and realistic stories of teens rather than the exploits of adults. This article looks at adult manga from the perspective of a first-year experience librarian, identifying works that will support students in another world,…

Once upon a time, Deena Mohamed’s Shubeik Lubeik was available only in Arabic. I first came across the graphic novel fantasy while browsing the website of Detroit-based Maamoul Press and would repeatedly hem and haw over buying a copy despite not knowing the language. Set in an alternate Cairo governed by the affordability and accessibility of wishes, Shubeik Lubeik was a hit upon its original publication in 2017 by Dar el-Mahrousa, winning both the Grand Prize and Best Graphic Novel at the Cairo Comix Festival that same year. Last January saw the release of its English translation (provided by Mohamed herself), and since then, Shubeik Lubeik has received widespread acclaim for its playfulness, complex world building, and subtle commentary on socioeconomic inequities. It’s among my favorite reads of recent years,…

In her 2019 TED Talk, “What Reading Slowly Taught Me about Writing,” Jacqueline Woodson talks about slowing down when we read to appreciate stories. She says, “Sometimes we read to understand the future. Sometimes we read to understand the past. We read to get lost, to forget the hard times we’re living in, and we read to remember those who came before us, who lived through something harder.” When I teach educators about integrating primary sources and graphic novels into their teaching, I come back to this message and the need to slow down and engage with individual stories. When I began reading graphic novels myself, I would read quickly, as I had been conditioned to do, moving fast around the page from text box to speech bubble, focusing only…

Betsy Gomez is the Assistant Director of Communications and Public Outreach for ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom (OIF). She comes to ALA from the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, where she spent a lot of time fighting the censorship of comics and graphic novels. Now, for OIF, she helps advise library workers across the country who are facing book challenges. Booklist’s Susan Maguire sat down to talk with Betsy about the history of challenges to comics, what the library landscape is like now, and how library workers can handle challenges in their communities. Maguire: The book that topped the Top 10 Most Challenged Books of 2023 list (and 2022 and 2021, for that matter) was a graphic memoir: Gender Queer, by Maia Kobabe. Another graphic novel, Flamer, by Mike Curato, made the…

Staff at the College of DuPage Library (Glen Ellyn, IL) began noticing an increased interest in manga during the summer of 2022. Students were eager to read and talk about manga and were enthusiastic about offering suggestions for our growing collection. Leveraging this momentum, I seized the opportunity to collaborate with students to build a collection that mirrored their leisure-reading preferences. Our manga collection has tripled in size since that summer and has experienced a substantial increase in circulation. The increased foot traffic in the manga section has led to more graphic novel and comics checkouts as a whole, as well as a great deal of browsing. I could not help but wonder, given the popularity of comics among students, How can librarians also make a case for using graphic…

People unfamiliar with the richness of manga may only be aware of action-packed, longrunning titles like Naruto or One Piece, but that is not all the format has to offer. Iyashikei, or healing manga, is a genre that is meant to bring a feeling of calm with peaceful settings, minimal drama, and hopeful plots. Another word for this genre is cozy. Iyashikei stories intersect with a wide range of other types of stories that readers may already be familiar with and enjoy. For example, quite a few romance stories can be found in this genre. Regardless of the gender of the protagonists, these romances are generally wholesome and they can begin in a wide range of situations such as a workplace, school, or even at a bus stop. Comedy is…