Graphic Novels in Your Media Center: A Definitive Guide [Paperback]

Allyson Lyga (Author), Barry Lyga (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1591581427 | ISBN-13: 978-1591581420 | Publication Date: June 30, 2004

This ultimate guide to collecting and using graphic novels in a school library is written by an elementary librarian out of her experience as a teacher librarian who uses graphic novels in her library media center for instruction and to advance pleasure reading. Her husband and co-author is employed by the comic book industry and is very knowledgeable about the history and development of this increasingly popular type of book. The book contains lesson plans linked to school curriculums for all ages plus a discussion of why graphic novels are useful with certain types of readers, particularly boys and reluctant readers. It feature helpful information and lists for collection development including reviews, reviewing sources, jobbers, Web sties and publisher contact information and posits reasons to help the librarian defend the use of graphic novels with students. Chapters about partnerships with local comic book stores and interviews with librarian users add to this title's usefulness. Illustrated with pages from popular graphic novels, this book will pique the interest of librarians and teachers who just love to read.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

This excellent resource guide offers school librarians and educators a comprehensive introduction to graphic novels. There is a growing number of professional resources about the topic, all of which cover similar subject matter, including definitions and terminology, cataloging, vendors, and recommended titles. What makes this book unique is the inclusion of numerous reproductions of sample pages from graphic novels and the many lesson plans designed for grades K-12, focusing on the curricular areas of English/language arts, the humanities, and social studies. Readers unfamiliar with the genre will appreciate the section on "How to Read a Comic Book" and the Lygas' ideas about using graphic novels to address multiple intelligences, visual literacy, and reluctant readers. A minor shortcoming is the lack of attention to the topics of age appropriateness and the depiction of women, a concern for many schools. This indispensable, well-organized guide will provide school librarians with all of the necessary information for implementing and developing a graphic-novels collection.–Philip Charles Crawford, Essex High School, Essex Junction, VT
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Motivated by their own appreciation of comic books and their experience using them in libraries, the authors offer a readable introduction to graphic novels in the media center. In the first section, they make cogent arguments for the inclusion of graphic novels. A second section introduces common terms and includes an extremely useful "how to read" subsection, complete with sample pages. The remaining sections provide recommended titles for all ages, testimonials from teachers and comic book store proprietors, resource lists, and a set of 17 lesson plans. An appendix of 100 graphic novels, a glossary, references, a lengthy bibliography of mentioned works, and an accurate index complete the volume. Equally useful for those who know graphic novels and for complete neophytes, this is a sound addition for larger elementary-, middle-, and high-school library professional collections. Ann Welton
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 200 pages
• Publisher: Libraries Unlimited (June 30, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591581427
• ISBN-13: 978-1591581420
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,709,314 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential Purchase for Librarians Working With Children, July 22, 2011

By 

setlib (Nashville, TN USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Graphic Novels in Your Media Center: A Definitive Guide (Paperback)

If you work with elementary or middle school children in a school or public library, and have been reluctant to add graphic novels to your collection, this book gives you everything you need to finally get started confidently building your collection. Even though this book was published in 2004, it still (as of 2011) is relevant, and even contains some great features that other books published since are lacking.

First of all, this guide spends the bulk of its time discussing elementary and middle school readers, unlike most other graphic novel guides which are really geared toward teen and adult titles. This is not, however, just a book of lists. If all you want is a big book of lists, consider Graphic Novels: A Genre Guide to Comic Books, Manga, and More (Genreflecting Advisory Series) which has a lot more titles but aren't arranged by age level, so you'll have to flip through the whole book to find the titles for younger children. However in this book, for example, the list of recommended titles for elementary readers only has nine titles -- but all nine are excellent and most are still in print. The entries on these titles include reviews, content advisories, and pictures of the covers. There are also often sample pages from the books, which no other guides include, and really help you feel confident about purchasing the titles.

Second, this book includes a section on "How to Read a Comic Book." If you have, literally, never picked up a graphic novel before, this section has lots of sample pages with labelled diagrams explaining panels and gutters, and some of the artistic features to look for. Every guide to graphic novels should have a section like this, and yet none of them do, so this feature alone makes this book stand out.

Third, this book has an entire section of lesson plans -- another great feature that I haven't seen in any other guides. Although the plans are specific to some of the graphic novels recommended in this book, they could certainly be easily adapted to any other GN you have in your collection. There is also a really good explanation of multiple intelligences and visual literacy which, along with the lesson plans and some other tips in the book, you can use to help get the other teachers and administrators on board with the idea of a graphic novel collection in your library.

I especially enjoyed the section "Practical Matters" which discusses how to catalog and shelve graphic novels, lists publishers, binderies, and distributors (including comic book stores), and has a great list of high-quality websites, most of which are still working.

My only criticism is that there was not enough specific discussion of Japanese manga, which is currently the hottest and most popular type of graphic novels in libraries. Although a few manga titles were in the recommended lists, there should have been a sample page explaining how to read manga, since they are often published right-to-left in the Japanese style and therefore have to be read "backwards." How can librarians explain to their students how to read these titles if they don't understand it themselves? If you want to buy manga as well, you will also need to read the superb library guide Understanding Manga and Anime to help demystify the trends and titles.