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Carrie · One Mean Dawg Joined: 01 Apr 2006 Posts: 504

Slam is the new book by Nick Hornby, coming out next month. It's his first YA novel, and I really enjoyed it. The main character is a teenage boy in London who loves skateboarding. He has a Tony Hawk poster up in his room, and he often talks to the poster. The funny thing is, it talks back, but only quoting things from Hawk's autobiography, so he's not always helpful. The guy ends up dating a girl, and getting her pregnant. He finds himself slammed into the future a few times, giving himself an off glimpse of what is coming, without any idea of how he got there. This is a really bad description, I really recommend it when it comes out.

Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist is told in alternating chapters from Nick and Norah's POV. They are both high school students, into punk music, straight edge although not all their friends are. They meet one evening in a club, and quickly get to know each other due to Nick wanting to appear taken to another girl. As the night in the NYC punk scene progresses, they talk, fall in love, question their choices, and bond over music. It totally takes you back to being 18. It's co-written by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan, each taking the job of voicing Norah and Nick, respectively. You don't need to be a punk music fan to remember what it was like to feel like music voiced your every emotion at that age.

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, by E. Lockhart, comes out in the next month or so. Frankie is a girl starting her 2nd year at a boarding school. The first year, no one paid any attention to her, but over the summer she blossomed and has caught the eye of a few boys. Unfortunately, she realizes that the boys are all involved in a secret society that is boys only, and she thinks that is unfair. So she sets out to infiltrate the society, and also plan the best prank the school has ever seen.

It's not a perfect book, but it's definitely fun. Frankie is a character you can easily come to love, even while she makes mistakes AND plans some awesome pranks.
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"The buying of more books than one can possibly read is the soul's way of aspiring towards infinity." - Unknown

A.J. · One Mean Dawg Joined: 10 Aug 2006 Posts: 260

Seagalogy: A Study of the Ass-Kicking Films of Steven Seagal - Definitely the most entertaining book I've read in a long time. Even if you hate Steven Seagal, I recommend that you check this one out.
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Carrie · One Mean Dawg Joined: 01 Apr 2006 Posts: 504

Dave, can I get your advice as a graphic novel wiz? I thought I'd pick up Watchmen for the school library with the movie coming out. One of the English teachers saw it on my desk and got all worried that if I put it in the collection, I could get fired because of all the bad stuff that is in there. I'm going to read it, but I thought I'd see what your thoughts are.
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"The buying of more books than one can possibly read is the soul's way of aspiring towards infinity." - Unknown

Dave · Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 10:40 am Post subject:

I guess it depends on the age group... I don't remember a ton of swearing, but there's some light nudity and sex. I seem to remember seeing Dr. Manhattan's naked penis at some point (the big blue guy).

It's always hard to tell what's going to get somebody riled, though. Comics have always had a more difficult time with censorship than prose because of the images... you can open a book, see a penis dangling there or a pair of naked breasts, and it's easy to make a case out of context that it's pornography.

I guess I wouldn't recommend it at all for elementary school, probably not for middle school, and would proceed with caution for high school. It's an adult work and narratively too complex for most kids under 15 or 16 years old I would think (we read the book for a Science Fiction course at Longwood and most classmates agreed that it was the most difficult book we read that semester... and it was up against the likes of Frankenstein, Neuromancer, and a Philip K Dick book).

The danger you run is that it features superheroes (still considered all ages friendly by and large) and it's going to be a high profile movie next year, so there may be a lot of misplaced interest.

Carrie · One Mean Dawg Joined: 01 Apr 2006 Posts: 504

Just flipping through it, you do see the penis, but it's like a store manniquin - molded to the body, not a big ol' schlong dangling. But I might have missed something.

The English teacher said there was a lot of violence, swearing, nudity, and discussion of beastiality.

Usually, if I can find 3 professional reviews to back something up, we put it in the collection. But since this is older, it's hard to find reviews in the types of sources we depend on (School Library Journal, etc). It keeps popping up on "must have graphic novel" lists I find, but there's also a lot of debate about putting it in a school. I'm of the opinion that kids usually don't bother to read anything they won't be able to handle, and it's possible I could add it and it would never check out. Lord knows no matter how much I rave about American Born Chinese, I've only seen it check out a handful of times in the past year. Whereas I can't keep the Death Notes, Fullmetal Alchemists, etc on the shelves.

I really want to improve my knowledge of the good stuff, but there's SO much, it's hard. I tried to strike up a conversation with a book store guy this weekend, but all he could recommend for anyone not an adult was Naruto, and I don't like that one much.
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"The buying of more books than one can possibly read is the soul's way of aspiring towards infinity." - Unknown

Dave · Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 4:56 pm Post subject:

Hmmm... I'd think that if the likes of Death Note are ok, then Watchmen should be alright as well. Again, there's suggested sex and even rape, but not very much explicit, and all tastefully handled. Plus, like you say, most kids who can make it to that part of the book are going to be able to handle it.

From what I understand, manga is the big deal with the young whippersnappers nowadays, and Western-style comics are by and large ignored. There's a ton of great manga, but I'm not tapped into what's big with kids... usually stuff that's tied to popular anime and tv shows from what I hear. It's hard for me to completely put myself back at that age... I was reading pretty adult comics at 15 like Preacher, Sandman, Hellblazer, that sort of thing, but I don't know if that stuff would fly in a school library.

American Born Chinese is a great book, but it sounds like most of your kids aren't into it. I guess they consider it a bit boring compared to horror/suspense manga? I could recommend my favorite stuff until I'm blue in the face, but I honestly think a lot of kids would be bored to death by my comics collection. You'd know better than me, though.

Jen might actually be a better person to talk to... she's got a degree in education and has worked with a lot of kids, and she's read a decent percentage of my and other comics (including Watchmen if I remember right). I'm guessing she'd have a better idea of what's appropriate and would be able to give more suggestions. I'm always glad to blab on and on (and on... and on) about anything related to comics and/or manga, though.

JenRocks · Posted: Mon Oct 06, 2008 7:33 pm Post subject:

What about the Blue Monday books by Chynna Clugston-Majors? Those are interesting because I think they'd actually appeal more to teen girls, and they're harder to get into comics than boys are. I'd say the boy equivalent would be the Scott Pilgrim books by Brian Lee O'Malley. Both series have allusions to sex and some cursing, but they're mostly innocent teenage fun and prankster stuff. Bone (Jeff Smith) is awesome and widely age-appropriate. Blankets by Craig Thompson (even though there's sex in it, but it's really a coming-of-age story - but if the sex might be an issue, look at it before you put it out there in the library). Fun Home by Alison Bechdel is another good coming-of-age story, but again, you probably want to review that to see if it would be appropriate in your school's culture - there is some lesbian sex in it. I totally think Watchmen is fine for high school kids, especially 16+, and like Dave said, I don't think that the kids who are too immature for it are going to actually get very far into it because it is very dense and rather difficult for kids with a short attention span. I haven't read it, but I've heard amazing things about Maus by Art Spiegelman (about the holocaust). And Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi was made into a movie that was released around Christmas last year, and both the movie and the book are highly acclaimed. Dave loves the Action Philosophers series - teaching major philosophies through funny comic books. Oh, and I just read Tellos Colossal by Todd DeZago and Mike Wieringo, and it was fantastic - beautiful art and an engaging story, and I think appropriate for a wide variety of ages. Dave liked the Meridian series by Barbara Kesel, and I've heard a few librarians recommend that for middle and high schoolers. Anyway. That's just a bunch of random thoughts banging around in my head all jumbled together for you...

Carrie · One Mean Dawg Joined: 01 Apr 2006 Posts: 504

I so very much appreciate both of your inputs!

I have Persepolis and Maus, and they occassionaly check ut but not as much as I wish. I don't have any Bone, and I guess I should get some because I see it every where. I'll have to check out the rest of your recommendations. The students in my school seem to mainly want manga, although the Batman and Superman stuff we have does occassionaly check out.

One thing I have noticed (and I have no idea if it's just my population or all over) I have just as many girls reading the graphic novels as I do boys, and the girls are more open to different things than the boys are. If there is a female who is the main character, it's mainly girls who check it out. For example, I just got the first three of some graphic novel series that starts with a B and I can't remember or find it on line so I'll have to come back tomorrow, but it's kind of artsy and the girls are inhaling it but since it's a female lead, I've only had one guy check it out.
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"The buying of more books than one can possibly read is the soul's way of aspiring towards infinity." - Unknown

Dave · Posted: Tue Oct 07, 2008 1:42 pm Post subject:

Cool... a couple other possibilities from me:

For the superhero stuff, I don't think you can't beat Ultimate Spider-Man for young adults. It's very fast paced and has a lot of the storytelling sensibilities found in a lot of manga, plus it's an updated, more modern (and slightly darker) version of Spider-Man that really jives with the movies. There are tons of different printings of the first issues that are all relatively cheap, and maybe even some digital printings.

The Minx line of books from DC Comics, though it's recently gone defunct, was aimed at teenage girls and most of them should still be in print. They were sized in a manga format and they had a lot of beautiful art. The only one I've read is Ross Campbell's Water Baby (which I loved), but beyond that there were a bunch of others, including a couple by YA author Cecil Castellucci. Check the titles out here.

One more that would probably appeal to your girls is the little known but really fantastic Electric Girl. It has a little bit of an underground comics look to it, but the storytelling is excellent and the stories are really cute. It's a series of stories revolving around a girl named Virginia at different points in her life (sometimes she's a kid, sometimes a teen) who has somewhat haywire static electricity powers. She never puts on a costume or anything, she just goes about her life despite constantly zapping everything -- or tries to. There's also a gremlin that only she can see who constantly terrorizes her, and her awesome little dog, Blammo.

Carrie · One Mean Dawg Joined: 01 Apr 2006 Posts: 504

I read 2 graphic novels this past weekend that I LOVED.

Skim is about an Asian girl at an all girls school in 1993 dealing with being 16, not being a popular girl, and developing a crush on her female drama teacher. It also gets into suicide, which reminded me a bit of Heathers.

Life Sucks is like Clerks mixed with vampires. The main guy runs the night shift at a convenience store and crushes on a goth girl who frequents the goth club in the same strip mall as his store. Her current boyfriend role-plays at being a vampire (I think role play is the right word) and she loves vampires. Little does she know that the regular dude running the store is a vampire himself. It's a smart, fun book. It never crosses into cheesy Twilight territory, but it's also not a vampire story in the traditional sense. Loved it!
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"The buying of more books than one can possibly read is the soul's way of aspiring towards infinity." - Unknown

Dave · Posted: Tue Mar 17, 2009 10:38 pm Post subject:

But... but...

... no Batman.

Crying or Very sad

Carrie · One Mean Dawg Joined: 01 Apr 2006 Posts: 504

Dave, I'd seen you post on FB over the weekend about the discount graphic novels and comics, and then read this today:

And over the weekend, a data error caused "hundreds if not thousands" of comics and graphic novels on Amazon to be deeply discounted, a move that was noted by many fans and led to so many orders that the company's Top 100 Book List was dominated by comics and graphic novels, Publishers Weekly reported. "Prices included high-end boxed set hardcover collections, really priced at more than $100 but suddenly offered for $14.99 or less."

It remains unclear whether Amazon will honor the orders.
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"The buying of more books than one can possibly read is the soul's way of aspiring towards infinity." - Unknown

Dave · Posted: Tue Mar 09, 2010 8:30 am Post subject:

Yeah, I got a note cancelling my order this morning. Oh well. The bargain was too good to pass up, but when it comes down to it, I don't really need more comics right now than the massive piles of unread stuff that's already sitting in my house. Confused

Carrie · One Mean Dawg Joined: 01 Apr 2006 Posts: 504

Did you get this?

Amazon will issue $25 gift certificates to some customers who took advantage of a data error last weekend that temporarily offered deep discounts on many comics and graphic novels (Shelf Awareness, March 9, 2010). TechCrunch reported that while Amazon will "honor some of the orders," it doesn't have enough books in stock for all of them and "is looking to smooth things over with some $25 gift certificates."
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"The buying of more books than one can possibly read is the soul's way of aspiring towards infinity." - Unknown

Dave · Posted: Wed Mar 10, 2010 9:26 am Post subject:

Not that I've seen, at least not yet. I wouldn't turn it down, though! Smile