12 Days of Reading Recommendations, Day 3: Pictures Worth So Many Words
Like a lot of people this year, I've availed myself of a few different excellent library systems and gotten a lot of reading done. I thought for an end-of-year treat, I'd share the books I'd recommend and what makes them worth reading. And wouldn't you know it, my reading just happens to sort of self-sift into twelve different subject areas, so it's twelve days of reading! Each day's recommendations newsletter will clock in at 600 words or less, so you can gulp this quick bite when you need a minute to yourself. Enjoy giving your Libby app a vigorous workout or making some independent bookseller very happy.
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PICTURES WORTH SO MANY WORDS
I wrote a personal essay I have not yet sold about how sneaking age-inappropriate reads is a tween rite of passage endangered by e-readers and parental controls. Part of the point of being a fifth grader was thumbing through my parents' copy of Herman Wouk's War and Remembrance and trying to puzzle out all the stuff I suspected I'd understand better as an adult.
How many other bookish kids spent their eleventh year carefully avoiding disturbing the bookmarks in their parents' books, trying to puzzle out why characters act as they do, and wondering how to ask about it without getting in trouble? How many kids read a passage, realized something new about the world, then felt a little dismay upon realizing there was no un-reading those words, no walking back to a more childish state of understanding?
I have often wondered how and when and if my daughter would do this -- or if I'd even know.
This past summer, I read Lucy Knisley's French Milk and Something New via Kindle, and the experience of contrasting the younger Knisley travelogue with the older Knisley meditation on getting married was so rewarding -- everything from the evolution of her drawing to the command of her narrative had evolved without losing Knisley's sui generis voice and visuals -- I decided I need to read the intervening books immediately. Our library didn't have digital copies of Relish, An Age of License or Displacement, but they did have the trade paperbacks, as well as Knisley's last graphic novel about her pregnancy, Kid Gloves. I picked them up from our heroes at the local library.
Two days after I brought the books home, I caught my daughter reading An Age of License under the covers with a flashlight. After I closed the door without saying anything, I did a little dance -- she's sneaking books I didn't pick out with her! O, rite of passage, still relevant in 2020!
I hasten to add that Knisley's books are graphic novels, but they're not graphic novels, if you know what I mean. My daughter could have a worse introduction to the wider seas of adult reading than a series of gently honest, observant books about a young woman whose curiosity, empathy and passion for her work lead her to explore how to live one's best life in one's 20s and 30s.
My other favorite comics by women this year -- Joëlle Jones's Ladykiller (Betty Draper likes to murder people) Marjorie Liu's Monstress (young woman hosts a horrible monster from beyond the void that likes to disembowel and eat people) -- can probably wait a few years.
We now own a complete set of Knisley's works. I thought they'd join my graphic novel collection, but they're currently wedged next to my daughter's complete collection of Raina Telgemeier works. I couldn't write a better metaphor for how fast young readers build their own internal understanding of the world through the books they sneak off their parents' shelves.
BOOKS MENTIONED IN THIS NEWSLETTER:
An Age of License by Lucy Knisley
Displacement by Lucy Knisley
French Milk by Lucy Knisley
Kid Gloves by Lucy Knisley
Ladykiller by Joëlle Jones
Monstress by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda
Relish' by Lucy Knisley
Something New by Lucy Knisley
BONUS INTERNET FUN
Among some of the podcasts I did this year, two which brought me the greatest joy were comics-related: I contributed to The Incomparable's "The Years Have Pants," which is a round-up of graphic novel recommendations aimed at people who don't read graphic novels but would love to start, and I butchered a Billy Joel classic tune in the name of mutanity on the episode "He'll Always Be Goldball to Me," which covered a truly wild X-Men epic, “House of X”/”Powers of X.”
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