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Katharine Kan on School Library Journal's Recent Coverage of Graphic Novels
posted March 15, 2008
 

The reason you may not be familiar with so many of the books Michele Gorman discussed in her article is that they're forthcoming titles. She received the advance copies from the publishers, as I have. I have all the books on her list, and I've already selected most of them for the H. W. Wilson Graphic Novel Core Collection (a subscription database for libraries that was also reviewed in that issue of School Library Journal). A couple of the books are coming out in April from Toon Books (Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly are the publishers), Magic Pickle was originally published by Oni Press and is coming out in a color edition from Graphix in May, etc. The book publishers (as opposed to comics publishers) probably target the library and bookstore market more with their advance copies. Some of the publishers: Stone Arch, Capstone, and Rosen - are library-centric publishers, although Rosen has been listing some of their books with Diamond.

It's definitely heartening to see more kid-friendly books being published. I work part time in a pre-K - 8th gr. Catholic school, and we have lots of graphic novels (mostly donated by me), and the kids read them like crazy. I just had to purchase hardcover editions of the Bone volumes from Graphix because the kids wore out the paperback copies in less than 2 years.