Ruth Chan, creator of the cutest cat in picture books, visited Inly last week, and I now have a beautiful picture of Georgie on my mantel! On the right – you can see Toad driving his red motor car!
Georgie, the star of Georgie’s Best Bad Day and Where’s the Party, is a cartoon cat who looks, as Ruth describes him, a bit like Garfield. That was on purpose. Ruth said her artwork is inspired by Garfield and the characters from Richard Scarry’s Busy Town.
Unsurprisingly, the kids loved meeting Ruth. She asked them to help her create some new animal characters, including fish and spiders, and showed them pictures of the real animals that inspired her stories.
She also showed us something inThe Great Indoors, a picture book she illustrated for Julie Falatko.
The interior of the house, based on Ruth’s childhood home, includes lots of Asian elements that poke through. You could have a scavenger hunt while reading this very funny book. Find: a Chinese scroll, a rice cooker, egg rolls, a Chinese ornament (a lion?) at the door, and mochi.
During our conversation, Ruth told me about her new project, a graphic memoir about moving from Canada to China when she was 13-years-old. “A reverse migration” story she called it. We talked about the explosion of graphic novels, and I expressed my concern that some students will not read a book in “traditional” form anymore. There are kids to whom I suggest a novel, and they will ask: does it come in a graphic novel? I love graphic novels and often seek them out for my own reading, but what were once part of a mixed diet for young readers, are increasingly becoming the only kind of books many kids will read. As Ruth pointed out, “this is just the beginning” so I guess we should clear more space in the library.
Every so often I will “close” the graphic novels section in our library and encourage kids to explore the rest of the collection. I tell them that “Raina needs a rest!” and some of them discover a new series in an overlooked part of the library. This is not a statement against graphic novels. I am truly a fan, but when I watch kids in the library, it gives me pause.
One of the most powerful books I’ve read recently is a graphic novel:
It’s the true stories of six children who survived the Holocaust – clearly painful to read, but each chapter is about a person who survived. At the end of the book is a section called “What Happened Next” that includes current photographs of each child with a short passage about their lives after WWII ended.
One thing Mary and I enjoy is looking “under the covers” of new books where we often discover “Easter Eggs,” illustrations that are hidden from readers unless they look under the dust jacket. Mary began finding them as she wrapped books and now we look for the bonus artwork. Here are a few of our recent favorites:
Happy Reading!
Sommer Reading 