yolland
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- Joined
- Aug 27, 2004
- Messages
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So..I just got back from a trip to Borders with my kids and was struck by how large their graphic novels section has become, compared to the relatively small "cult following" niche these titles used to occupy. Although my own kids are too young to have much of an interest in these yet, I frequently hear from friends with older kids that their teens and preteens are devouring this type of book--and specifically manga--often to the near-exclusion of anything else. So, I was just sort of thinking ahead to a time when my kids' reading interests will be more peer-influenced than they are now, and musing about whether I ought to have any concerns about the apparently addictive allure of these titles.
Now, I've read some wonderful graphic novels that I recommend to people all the time--Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, Joe Sacco's Palestine and Art Spiegelman's Maus all come to mind. And I wasn't totally befuddled by the emergence of the anime craze that manga seem to be riding on, because I watched some of those kitschy '70s anime like Battle of the Planets myself as a kid--in fact, those were the only shows besides Star Trek that I didn't ridicule as "baby stuff. " (Or maybe it was more that those were the only shows my older brothers wouldn't ream me for watching. )
But...having spent some time glancing over the manga at Borders, and peeking at what my friends' kids are reading, I do have a few concerns about them. Again, I'm thinking about this specifically in the context of knowing that so many kids read A LOT of them--I'm not particularly concerned about my kids occasionally enjoying them, as one small part of a balanced reading diet. I'm more wondering about how advisable it would be to let my kids get really, really into them, should that start to happen.
1) Manga seem, on the whole, to be very insubstantial in terms of plot, character development, demands on the reader's imagination, etc. While I appreciate that almost all forms of reading build vocabulary and "help instill a lifetime love of books," my feeling is that some of the other, equally (more?) important benefits of reading--analytical skills, moral imagination, ability to express oneself well in writing, ability to take the germ of an idea and develop it into something full and powerful--only come from reading works with much longer, richer and denser narrative content.
2) Judging from the rate my 7 year old is currently devouring intermediate and young adult sci-fi at, my guess is he would/will be able to finish most manga in a couple hours or less. Nothing per se wrong with that, but these books are not cheap and they don't (yet, anyway) seem to be extensively carried by our local library or used bookstores.
3) While most bookstores seem to shelve all manga titles together regardless of subgenre, quite a few of them look to me to be quite inappropriate for anyone under 15 or so. I'm not the sort to think a 12 year old will be irretrievably traumatized by a book whose protagonist says "Fuck" occasionally, or expresses a little sexual desire here and there, but some of these books frankly look more like they belong in the softcore erotica section. Or even the vanilla S&M section (OK, so Borders doesn't have one of those).
But maybe I'm just being a pop-culture-illiterate snob. Or making much ado over nothing.
Perspectives anyone?
On a side note, I'm also curious to know whether these books are just as popular elsewhere as they are in the US.
Now, I've read some wonderful graphic novels that I recommend to people all the time--Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, Joe Sacco's Palestine and Art Spiegelman's Maus all come to mind. And I wasn't totally befuddled by the emergence of the anime craze that manga seem to be riding on, because I watched some of those kitschy '70s anime like Battle of the Planets myself as a kid--in fact, those were the only shows besides Star Trek that I didn't ridicule as "baby stuff. " (Or maybe it was more that those were the only shows my older brothers wouldn't ream me for watching. )
But...having spent some time glancing over the manga at Borders, and peeking at what my friends' kids are reading, I do have a few concerns about them. Again, I'm thinking about this specifically in the context of knowing that so many kids read A LOT of them--I'm not particularly concerned about my kids occasionally enjoying them, as one small part of a balanced reading diet. I'm more wondering about how advisable it would be to let my kids get really, really into them, should that start to happen.
1) Manga seem, on the whole, to be very insubstantial in terms of plot, character development, demands on the reader's imagination, etc. While I appreciate that almost all forms of reading build vocabulary and "help instill a lifetime love of books," my feeling is that some of the other, equally (more?) important benefits of reading--analytical skills, moral imagination, ability to express oneself well in writing, ability to take the germ of an idea and develop it into something full and powerful--only come from reading works with much longer, richer and denser narrative content.
2) Judging from the rate my 7 year old is currently devouring intermediate and young adult sci-fi at, my guess is he would/will be able to finish most manga in a couple hours or less. Nothing per se wrong with that, but these books are not cheap and they don't (yet, anyway) seem to be extensively carried by our local library or used bookstores.
3) While most bookstores seem to shelve all manga titles together regardless of subgenre, quite a few of them look to me to be quite inappropriate for anyone under 15 or so. I'm not the sort to think a 12 year old will be irretrievably traumatized by a book whose protagonist says "Fuck" occasionally, or expresses a little sexual desire here and there, but some of these books frankly look more like they belong in the softcore erotica section. Or even the vanilla S&M section (OK, so Borders doesn't have one of those).
But maybe I'm just being a pop-culture-illiterate snob. Or making much ado over nothing.
Perspectives anyone?
On a side note, I'm also curious to know whether these books are just as popular elsewhere as they are in the US.