I'm currently in Johnston, Iowa, working with the Iowa Council of Teachers of English and am having a blast. Some members wanted me to post a "top ten" recommended reading list, so here it is in no particular order!:
Maus by Art Spiegelman
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
Bone by Jeff Smith
The Tale of One Bad Rat by Bryan Talbot
Ultimate Spider-Man Volume 1 by Marvel
American Born Chinese by Gene Yang
Deogratias: A Tale of Rwanda by J.P. Stassen
Runaways by Brian K. Vaughan and Marvel
Pride of Baghdad by Brian K. Vaughan
Pedro and Me by Judd Winick
Now, I often rotate titles in and out of my ten favorites, and these represent middle-and high school-friendly titles. If you want more titles and more mature titles, just ask.
2 comments:
I've read most of your list (save for Talbot and Stassen). I actually really disliked Yang's book and thought "Pride of Baghdad" was kind of blah. I went into "American Born Chinese" expecting more due to the Eisner win and the facts I live in the SF Bay Area and have Chinese family members. I thought it a little too abstract and what was supposed to be offensive was perhaps overly so. I also thought Spider-Man was good, but not up there with the classics. Might I recommend "Blankets" by Craig Thompson as a good autobiographical tale? (Also interesting to note a list of recommended graphic novels that doesn't include "Watchmen.")
Hi! Thanks for commenting.
Remember: this is a list of middle-and high-school appropriate titles, in my opinion. If it was a "Bucky's top 10 favorites," Watchmen would be right up at the top of the list, along with several other Alan Moore works.
As for Blankets, I'm on the fence as to whether I'd teach it in high school, and I see it as a rather soggy story, a little too caught up in itself (I'm not against others doing so; I just don't know if I would). I find it very whiny. I'm not a big fan. I see it as sort of the Catcher in the Rye of graphic novels -- if you don't read it at a certain time in your life, you may never really have it speak to you. I just want to shake Holden and tell him to suck it up. I feel similarly about the characters in Blankets. I did like Goodbybe, Chunky Rice and think there are some great connections that teachers could make with his work and that of ee cummings or T.S. Eliot. And, I will be using it in my "Teaching the Graphic Novel" graduate course next semester.
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