A Public Service Announcement! ;)

A Public Service Announcement! ;)

Wednesday, October 14, 2009

_Stitches_ Among National Book Award Finalists


David Small's graphic novel joins Gene Yang's American Born Chinese as theo nly two ever GN's ever nominated for the award.

1 comment:

Bucky C. said...

I just finished reading this book, which my westside Barnes and Noble consultant told me wasn't a graphic novel, but a biography.

Lol. You just gotta laugh. Which I did. At him. At his words. But softly, subtly.

Anyway, the book is a fine read. The drawing style has an Eisneresque way of othering adult figures throughout the text, but the story does have a turning point when the author/main character seems to have softened towards the adults that so often made his childhood sense of self and sense of knowledge difficult to attain or resolve. This gives the effect of real mautirty for the protagonist. As for the details of the story, one can find that pretty easily on line, so I won't go into them. I will say the dust jacket contains the most accurate and artful description of the text it contains that I have read in a long time. I recomend this text for young adults and older readers.

I can definitely see how judges saw it as a great young adult text deserving of National Book Award consideration. I hope it wins. It has connections to all YA Lit, literary connections, and connections to comics and cartoons that give it literary merit beyond being an excellently told story in and of itself. But, read it to see what I mean, OK? :)