Module 3 Journal: The Carl Barks Award for Children’s Graphic Novels

My proposal for a new book award would be the Carl Barks Award for Children’s Graphic Novels. Graphic novels and comic books have been a popular art for with both children and adult for a long time, but only recently has the book community started to recognize the genre for its literary merit. Graphic novels for children have been an important and instrumental part of adolescent readers’ lives, especially those who loved picture books as young children and would like to see the positive qualities of those books realized in a more age-appropriate manner. Modern comic books are written for a variety of readers and are becoming more and more specialized.

Throughout the Golden Age of Comics as comic book readers got older, there was a focus on creating stories that would appeal to a wide range of age groups. Then in the 1980s, there was a shift in focus to more gritty, realistic and edgy comic books aimed totally at adults. Frank Miller, Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore popularized this genre of “mature” comic books geared towards adults. Towards the late 1990’s and early 2000’s a new shift began with comics being made with adolescent readers in mind. Jeff Smith’s Bone series was originally self-published and not made with a specific audience in mind. Later Disney recognized the chance for children to be enchanted by these stories and released shorter and censored versions of the story on their imprint. Finally, in 2004, Scholastic Books reissued the collections in an imprint made specifically for graphic novels for young people. This paved the way for other comic book writers, such as the aforementioned Gaiman, to delve into the world of children’s writing. Today, children’s graphic novels are popular and gaining acceptance among the mainstream book world. As such, the creation of an award for such books is only a matter of time.

I propose naming the award after Carl Barks, creator of Uncle Scrooge and other iconic Duckville characters for Disney in the 1940’s. He created comic books specifically for children and has had a lasting artistic impact on comic book creators to this day. Will Eisner, a prominent and standard-setting comic book writer and artist once called him the “Hans Christian Andersen of comic books.”

The award would have the following critieria:

• The work must be in book form. Comic books are not acceptable unless they are collected into a book.
• The work must be appropriate for children up to the age of 15. Works created specifically for children will be considered first.
• The work may be from any country or language, but must be translated into English. Only the English translation will be judged, not the original.
• The work must display both excellent artistic merit and excellent story writing. The book will be judged based on it’s coherence as a total work and the value the work adds to the literary world as a whole.
• A “graphic novel” is defined as a book in which narrative and dialog appears as part of the illustration, either in word bubbles or boxes in the artwork itself. Traditional picture books that have text separate from illustrations will not be considered. It must follow the traditional “comic book” style of multiple panels per page throughout the majority of the work.
• The award will be presented to both the author(s) and the illustrator(s). No consideration will be made to the amount of people contributing to the book, unless it detracts from the quality of the art and/or story.
• Parts of a series will be considered individually. The only time an entire series will be judged as a whole will be if it is collected into a single bound volume.

The Arrival by Shaun Tan

The first book I would give this award to would be The Arrival by Shaun Tan published by Arthur A. Levine Books, an imprint of Scholastic, Inc. The book’s unique visual style and breathtaking illustrations are only enhanced by the lack of any words in the book. The reader must derive the meaning of the panels from the action taking place in the illustrations, creating an exciting and engaging experience for the reader. An allegory for European immigrants arriving in the New World, The Arrival follows the journey of a man leaving his desolate homeland and family behind to find a better life far away. He travels to a mysterious and alien world populated by strange creatures and massive and extravagant architecture. There he meets a number of helpful people who assist him in creating a new life for himself. Simple things such as finding food, finding work and communication are difficult due to the fact that the language and writing of the new world is completely foreign to the man. Finally, through the help of friends, he is able to raise enough money to bring his family to his new home and live “happily ever after.” The confusion and desperation of the man is felt by the reader by way of the wordless pages that require the reader to create meaning from pictures. The reader is unable to know if they must take everything at face value or if there is some deep and underlying meaning that is being missed. This book is a fitting winner for the first Carl Banks Award for Children’s Graphic Novels.

Module 3 Blog: Golem and The Tequila Worm

Golem by David Wisniewski

Golem by David Wisniewski is an intriguing tale about the legendary golem created by a rabbi in Prague. The golem is a giant created from clay and the uttering of holy words that can create life from nothing. The golem is called to protect the Jewish ghetto in Prague from men who are spreading lies about the Jews and creating a dangerous situation for all Jews that reside in the city. When the golem is successful, a riot erupts and the giant single-handedly defeats the enemies of the Jews. The city is forced to reach a compromise and the golem, having fulfilled his purpose, is destroyed. He pleas for his life but Rabbi Leow takes his life from him and buries the clay underneath a pile of books to be saved for future generations.

The story is illustrated with, according to the copyright page, “Color-Aid, Coral and Bark cut papers.” The result is a dramatic and colorful story with a cut and paste look which give the illustrations a textural appearance. The pictures jump out of the page and seem truly three-dimensional in a way that could only have been created in this unique medium. This method gives Wisniewski the ability to create a strikingly detailed story populated by geometric characters and beautiful backdrops that add a level of depth and realism that is rare in such a fantastical story. The story itself is told with a stark realism that undercuts the harshness of the oppression the Jews face and the strictness of the religion, as well as the Rabbi’s promise to keep his word, even as the golem begs for his life.

A Kirkus Reviews review copied from Google Books

The much honored cut-paper master (Sundiata, 1992, etc.) turns his attention to a retelling of the story of the Golem, created by a chief rabbi, Judah Loew, to defend the Jews against the “”Blood Lie”” (that Jews were mixing the blood of Christian children with the flour and water of matzoh) of 16th-century Prague. Like Rogasky’s book (see review, above), Wisniewski’s exposes the slander that was embraced and widely promulgated during the Holocaust years. Loew’s Golem–a sort of simple yet powerful giant made of clay with the Hebrew word emet (truth) on his forehead–is named Joseph and charged to “”guard the ghetto at night and catch those planting false evidence of the Blood Lie . . . and bring them unharmed to the authorities.”” In Wisniewski’s story, the Golem turns back the rampaging masses who want to destroy the Jews of Prague and is eventually returned, to the clay from which he sprang. The cut-paper collages are exquisitely produced and exceedingly dramatic. There is menace and majesty in Wisniewski’s use of color, and he finds atmosphere and terror in a scissor’s stroke. A fact-filled final note concludes this mesmerizing book. …
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This book would be a great educational opportunity in a multicultural curriculum to learn about the legends of various cultures. It would be possibly to compare the golem to other legends and discover the differences and similarities. It could also be part of a unit on Jewish history, showing the hardships suffered by the Jews over the centuries and how such stories evolve out of this type of setting.

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The Tequila Worm by Viola Canales

Viola Canales’ The Tequila Worm is a story about a girl named Sofia and her life growing up as a Mexican girl in McAllen, Texas. She is a girl with a large extended family life that is focused on her barrio. It describes the many rituals and superstitions that are part of growing up in a Mexican family. She finds that she is different from the other girls, focusing more on school and sports than boys and her quinceanera. As she grows older she realizes she wants more for herself and enrolls in a prep school in Austin, far away from her family and friends. With the death of her father she reconnects to her heritage and learns how to give back to the community that gave so much to her.

The book was an entertaining and relatively accurate account of what it is like to grow up Mexican. However, some of the dialog and events in the story reinforce stereotypes about Mexicans that are not entirely accurate, such as the obsession with beans and religion. While these story elements were probably used to create a mood, it seems like to the author Mexican life is all about crucifixes and comadres, when the reality is much more varied. This might be a personal bias I have, as I am often annoyed with stories portraying ethnicities with large families and odd rituals such as My Big Fat Greek Wedding. I understand the author’s attempt to create a window into Mexican culture, but I think it is a little forced. I did enjoy the recurring themes involving teeth, kicking, eggs and chocolate and how those tied together different sections of the book.

A Booklist review copied from Amazon.com

*Starred Review* Gr. 6-9. From an early age, Sofia has watched the comadres in her close-knit barrio community, in a small Texas town, and she dreams of becoming “someone who makes people into a family,” as the comadres do. The secret, her young self observes, seems to lie in telling stories and “being brave enough to eat a whole tequila worm.” In this warm, entertaining debut novel, Canales follows Sofia from early childhood through her teen years, when she receives a scholarship to attend an exclusive boarding school. Each chapter centers on the vivid particulars of Mexican American traditions–celebrating the Day of the Dead, preparing for a cousin’s quinceanera. The explanations of cultural traditions never feel too purposeful; they are always rooted in immediate, authentic family emotions, and in Canales’ exuberant storytelling, which, like a good anecdote shared between friends, finds both humor and absurdity in sharply observed, painful situations–from weathering slurs and other blatant harassment to learning what it means to leave her community for a privileged, predominately white school. Readers of all backgrounds will easily connect with Sofia as she grows up, becomes a comadre, and helps rebuild the powerful, affectionate community that raised her.

This story would be great in a unit for Hispanic Heritage Month, or simply exploring ethnicities. Students could be asked to explore the similarities and differences between Sofia’s upbringing and their own. They could also explore the meanings of the various iconography in the books such as beans, rosaries, eggs and chocolate.