Category: Manga

Free Comic Book Day 2019!

Every year, I’m so fortuitous to have a wonderful library system and support group that enables us to have a smooth Free Comic Book Day!

This year I tried something different. Previous years, I had all comic stacks sitting on the table. Anyone can come up and look and see the quantity of comics we have to determine what they wanted. Then they communicate to the volunteers what they want and that they’ll take the comic issue they want. The reason why it was set up as so was I wanted to emulate the tables seen at our local anime convention. Plus anyone could browse and not feel pressured to pick a comic if they didn’t want. The downside was, we would get patrons asking to switch out comics after they finished reading. I don’t want to say no but it wouldn’t be fair, right? There’s always having a sample for patrons to read before as an option, so there’s a positive side to this!

For the display, I labeled them with letters. That way people can see the covers and if interested but unsure about the character, they can give the volunteer a letter. Our volunteers sometimes have a list of titles but may not be well versed in graphic novels; I’ve received positive comments from volunteers that they like having this system of patrons saying they want letter A comic. Fast and efficient service!

Happy gif
Happy day!

Local artists drew and printed bookmarks which patrons can pick with their comic of choice. In addition to the comic and bookmark, patrons could enter for a chance to win one of two $20 gift certificates from Dragon’s Lair.

Accurate gif of happy people

We gave away over 200 comics from 10 am – 4:30 pm with the help of 4 volunteers! It was a rainy day but we made it through. Many thanks to the Friends of the Library of Hawaii, Hawaii State Public Library System, Friends of Mililani Public Library, Dragon’s Lair for the gift certificates and you!

For more information on Free Comic Book Day, check out their website at https://www.freecomicbookday.com/. Free Comic Book Day is held on the first Saturday of May. Contact your nearest library to find out if they’re participating in Free Comic Book Day!

Hearts for All – A Romance Booklist

Love is in the air!

kagomexinuyasha
Kagome and Inuyasha denying the attraction via giphy

A booklist on romance, relationships, and friendship! Recommended for 6th – 12th graders. 

Non-Fiction:
155.519 Ch
Chapman, Gary. Teen’s Guide to the 5 Love Languages. Includes a straightforward guide on the 5 love languages and practical tips for how to apply each language in a teen’s context.

306.73 Ea
Eastham, Chad. The Truth about Breaking Up, Making Up, & Moving On. Explains why some people find happiness and others heartache, when to break up and when to make up. A Christian faith-based relationship guide.

Fiction:

Albertalli, Becky. Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda. Sixteen-year-old and not-so-openly gay Simon Spier prefers to save his drama for the school musical but when his secret is at risk of being exposed, Simon must decide what to do about a cute guy and his friends.

Cass, Kiera. The Siren. Forced to work as a Siren and lure strangers to their deaths after being rescued from drowning by the Ocean, Kahlen falls in love with a human and defies the rules of her service in order to follow her heart.

Nakano, Hitori. Train Man: The Novel or Densha Otoko. An instant bestseller when it was first published in Japan, Train Man became a multimedia sensation, generating a smash-hit TV series, a blockbuster film, and multiple manga series. Now here’s the novel that started it all.

Niven, Jennifer. Holding Up the Universe. A boy with face blindness and a girl who struggles with weight fall in love.

Silvera, Adam. History Is All You Left Me. Secrets are revealed as OCD-afflicted Griffin grieves for his first love, Theo, who died in a drowning accident.

Yoon, Nicola. Everything Everything. A girl confined to her house by rare and profound allergies falls hopelessly in love with her new neighbor, in a story told through vignettes, diary entries, texts, charts, lists and illustrations.

Popular YA Romance Series:

  • Anna and the French Kiss series by Stephanie Perkins
  • To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before series by Jenny Han
  • A Bride’s Story by Kaoru Mori (Graphic Novel)
  • The Glittering Court series by Richelle Mead
  • Honey So Sweet series by Amu Meguro (Graphic Novel)
  • If I Stay series by Gayle Forman
  • Kamisama Kiss by Julietta Suzuki (Graphic Novel)
  • The Selection series by Kiera Cass
  • The Summer I Turned Pretty series by Jenny Han

Popular YA Romance Authors:

  • Jenny Han
  • Rachel Cohn
  • Maurene Goo
  • Rainbow Rowell
  • Sarah Dessen
  • Kami Garcia
  • Deb Caletti
  • Kiera Cass
  • Aylson Noel
  • Stephanie Perkins
  • David Leviathan
  • Richelle Mead
  • Nicola Yoon

Compiled from Novelist and Amazon.

Eisner Hall of Fame: Rumiko Takahashi!

It’s the year of Rumiko Takahashi! She is the FIRST female mangaka to be inducted into the Eisner Hall of Fame!

maison ikkoku
Maison Ikkoku cheers via giphy

Let’s briefly start with what the Eisner Hall of Fame is, from the Comic-Con International website:

The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, considered the “Oscars” of the comic book industry, are handed out each year in a gala ceremony at Comic-Con International: San Diego. Named for renowned cartoonist Will Eisner (creator of “The Spirit” and pioneer of the graphic novels), the Awards are given out in more than two-dozen categories covering the best publications and creators of the previous year.

Big deal? It’s a big deal. More at the Comic Con International website. She joins Osamu Tezuka (2002 inductee), Goseki Kojima (2004 inductee), Kazuo Koike (2004 inductee) and Katsushiro Otomo (2012 inductee).

Rumiko Takahashi’s works include:

  • Urusei Yatsura – 34 volumes
  • Maison Ikkoku – 15 volumes
  • Mermaid Saga – 3 volumes
  • Ranma 1/2 – 38 volumes
  • One-Pound Gospel – 4 volumes
  • Rumic Theater (Short story anthologies)
  • Rumic World (Short story anthologies)
  • Inuyasha – 56 volumes
  • Rin-Ne – 40 volumes

rumikotakahashi
Rumiko Takahashi and manga via giphy

She had been nominated for the Eisner Hall of Fame previously in years 2014, 1016, and 2017. Ms. Takahashi won the prestigious Shogakukan Manga Award in 1980 for Urusei Yatsura and in 2001 for Inuyasha, both in the Shonen category.

Congratulations to Rumiko Takahashi!

Every Dog Has Its Day – A Dog Booklist

I made a dog-theme booklist for work and want to share!

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Cute dog via giphy

A booklist on everything dogs! Recommended for 6th – 12th graders. 

Browse these non-fiction sections for more:
Dog Breeds: 636.7 or 636.71

Non-Fiction:
636.71 Kr
Krämer, Eva-Maria. Get to Know Dog Breeds: The 200 Most Popular Breeds. Discusses the appearance, origin, and temperament of more than two hundred dog breeds categorized into groups according to the tasks they were original bred for, including herding dogs, hunting dogs, sled dogs, lap dogs, and more.

636.70887 Da
Dainty, Suellen. 50 Games to Play with your Dog. Discover games that are both easy to teach and fun for your canine pal. The book includes challenging mental games for indoors as well as stimulating physical games for outside the home. Learn ideas for group games that are ideal for multi-dog households and doggy play dates.

Dogs in Fiction:
Ando, Yuma. Sherlock Bones. After adopting a dog, Takeru discovers that his new pet is the reincarnation of Sherlock Holmes, and that he himself must act as Dr. Watson and help his canine solve crimes.

Cameron, W. Bruce. A Dog’s Journey. Believing that he has achieved his purpose throughout several eventful lives, Buddy the dog is drawn to a vibrant but troubled teen who he struggles to help when they are separated.

London, Jack. Call of the Wild. The adventures of an unusual dog, part St. Bernard, part Scotch Shepherd, that was kidnapped and shipped off to Alaska to work on the Klondike Gold Rush. Buck the dog quickly learns how to survive in the wild and also learns the call of the wolf.

London, Jack. White Fang. The adventures in the northern wilderness of a dog who is part wolf and how he comes to make his peace with man.

King, Stephen. Cujo. A family’s two-hundred-pound Saint Bernard is transformed by rabies and the insidious guidance of demonic forces into a terrifying monster.

Murakami, Takashi. Stargazing Dog. Fed up with his down-and-out life, Daddy sets out in his car to just get away from it all to nowhere in particular. His family and friends have abandoned him. The one companion he can count on completely, his dog, follows him blindly and faithfully to the end.

Orwell, George. Animal Farm. A satire on totalitarianism in which farm animals overthrow their human owner and set up their own government.

Reichs, Kathy. Virals. Tory Brennan is the leader of a band of teenage ‘sci-philes’ who live on an island off the coast of South Carolina and when the group rescues a dog caged for medical testing, they are exposed to an experimental strain of canine parvovirus that changes their lives forever.

Sakuragi, Yukiya. Inubaka: Crazy for Dogs. When eighteen-year-old Suguri moves from the countryside to the big city to find a career and a new life, she lands her first job at a pet store and meets an assortment of quirky dogs and even stranger owners.

(GN for Graphic Novel) Compiled from Novelist and Amazon.

“Graphic Novels and You” Info

I figured I would make a separate post on the information regarding the brochure that was given out during the “Graphic Novels and You” panel Hillary and I hosted. I reformatted it so it fits a blog post rather than the trifold brochure. Please contact me if there are any questions!

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Photo by marguerite/Flickr

Top Recommended Graphic Novels for Your Library

  • Amulet by Kazu Kibuishi
  • Bone by Jeff Smith
  • Case Closed by Gosho Aoyama
  • The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller
  • Dragon Ball by Akira Toriyama
  • Fables by Bill Willingham
  • Fruits Basket by Natsuki Takaya
  • Level Up by Gene Leung Yang
  • Maus by Art Spiegelman
  • Monstress by Marjorie M. Liu
  • Oishinbo by Tetsu Kariya and Akira Hanasaki
  • Paper Girls by Brian K. Vaughan
  • Saga by Brian K. Vaughan
  • A Silent Voice by Yoshitoki Oima
  • Smile by Raina Telgemeier
  • The Sandman by Neil Gaiman
  • Watchmen by Alan Moore

(Note: Feedback from people who attended the panel, we should have added suggested age ratings as well as separate recommended lists for Juvenile, Teens, and Adults. This will be rectified in the future.)

Non-Fiction Books

  • Comics Confidential: 13 Graphic Novelists Talk Story, Craft, and Life Outside the Box by Leonard S. Marcus
  • 100 Greatest Graphic Novels: The Good. The Bad. The Epic. by Katrina Hill and Alex Langley
  • Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art by Scott McCloud
  • Critical Survey of Graphic Novels: Manga edited by Bart H. Beaty and Stephen Weiner
  • The Readers’ Advisory Guide to Graphic Novels by Francisca Goldsmith
  • Graphic Novels Core Collection edited by Kendal Spires, Gabriela Toth, and Maria Hugger

(Note: Originally the books were separated between books that were available for patrons to check out versus books that were used for reference-only/non-circulating use for library staff. I decided to put them together because shouldn’t have to be separated!)

Non-Fiction Electronic Resources

What is the Graphic Novel?

The Graphic Novel is defined as a story presented in comic-strip format and published as a book. It has many names from the East, from manga (Japan), manhua (China, Hong Kong, Taiwan), manhwa (Korea) to the general term comics in the West. Graphic Novels appeal to all ages, now a part of the popular culture that encompasses movies, novels, television shows, and politics.

Age Ratings

Many publishers have a suggested rating on each graphic novel published, oftentimes on the back of the book. As a librarian, you use your judgment, research reviews, read
the graphic novel, ask colleagues in order to determine where the Graphic Novel should be (Adult/YA/Children collections). Graphic Novels have a general rating system across the board: E for Everyone, Y for Youth (10+), T for Teen (13+), OT for Older Teen (16+), and M for Mature (18+). This is a general system and certain publishers might have a different age rating (i.e. DC Comics has 15+ for OT but but Yen Press lists 16+) so it is something to keep in mind.

Articles

Don’t Judge a Manga by Its Rating…
From YALSA’s The Hub is an article about how sometimes you need look beyond the rating to determine if a graphic novel would be a sound choice for teens.
http://tiny.cc/yalgn

Graphic Novels: A Road Map to Academic Success
From the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) is an article written on the empowerment of graphic novels.
http://tiny.cc/skoolgn

How Graphic Novels Became the Hottest Section in the Library
Publisher’s Weekly released an article on Graphic Novels and “How [They] Became the Hottest Section in the Library”. For one library, graphic novels make up 10% of the collection but accounts for 35% of their circulation.
http://tiny.cc/pwgn

The People’s Comics…
School Library Journal’s article “The People’s Comics: Using the Graphic Format to Teach About Current Events” is an excellent read regarding the graphic novel’s growing presence in the classroom.
http://tiny.cc/sljgn

(Note: Originally there were QR codes which readers can scan onto their phones to read but tiny urls were also included. I took our the QR codes for this post.)