EXPANDING HORIZONS with Graphic Novels
Graphic novels are an excellent way not only into books for children, but also into social issues and history. With excellent illustrations and styles of drawing to please a variety of tastes, we are always on the lookout at VOLUME for graphic novels that will engage young people in the world, in narrative, and in the wonder of the written word and art on the page.
Here’s a selection of recent titles to pique your curiosity:
Song of a Blackbird, from Dutch author and illustrator Maria van Lieshout, is a skillfully told story of famlly history, the trials of surviving World War II in Europe, and an emotional journey for a young woman trying to help her Oma. Armed with only a few photographs of buildings in Amsterdam, Annick (in 2011) must unpick the mystery of her Oma’s childhood to save her life. A two-handed story, the other strand of this story is set in wartime Holland. It’s 1943 and everything is changing for Emma as she embarks on a dangerous mission right under the noses of the Nazi soldiers. Song of a Blackbird has striking two-tone illustrations with splashes of colour complemented by black-and-white historic photographs. This is a powerful story of courage, compassion and resistance.
Taking another episode from history is Pearl by Sherri L. Smith and Christine Norrie — another dual-time novel. This time we are in Japan in the 1940s with Amy, a Japanese American girl born in Hawaii, sent to visit her ailing great-grandmother. After Pearl Harbour is bombed Amy is stuck in Japan, where she is conscripted by the military to be a Monitor Girl listening in and translating U.S. radio messages. The other story thread is the one her great-grandmother tells her: the Japanese annexation of the Ryukyu Kingdom in Okinawa in 1879. Both are stories of survival and hope, and for Amy, identity, the conflict of being both Japanese and American. Christine Norrie’s illustrations capture the confusion and emotion of the situation, and the sharp singular colour palette has great impact.
Young Hag is another wonderful publication from the pen and wit of Isabel Greenberg. This delightful coming-of-age story takes us into history, into the drama of Arthurian legend. Here we will encounter tales of tales of Merlin, the Lady of the Lake, King Arthur, Morgan le Fay, and Lancelot. Here there is a changeling that needs returning to the Otherworld. The Ancient Crone has left a door open. The magic is leaking through. Young Hag, one of the last real witches in Britain, must find her magic to reverse a wrong. But can she do it? With glorious illustrations, an irrepressible heroine, and a wonderful feminist retelling of Arthurian legends, who could resist this book?
