Webinar Video

       The Engaging Accelerated and Reluctant Readers with Comics webinar I participated in last week is now available on video.  It's free and streaming right here.

Webinar Registration

      Engaging Accelerated and Reluctant Readers with Comics, a free webinar I am one of the panelists for, is next Thursday, February 25th at 7:00 PM (ET) and here is the registration.  Please join us!

Readers and Comics Webinar

      I'm delighted to be joining a panel of experienced educators for a webinar on, as the title says, Engaging Accelerated and Reluctant Readers with Comics.  If you're an educator or librarian or are interested or invested in literacy education and comics, please join us on Thursday, February 25th at 7:00 PM (ET).  Registration is free and you can find it right here, along with a space to post questions for the panelists. 

Bible-toons?!?

      Bible-toons tells both famous and obscure stories from the Bible in comics form.  No proselytizing, no satirizing, just exciting stories with historical and thoughtful content and sharp visuals.  Headed by my Graphic Novels in Your School Library and Dr. Lollypop collaborator Rush Kress, Bible-toons is off to a smashing start with six issues ready to go.  Number seven will be my first scripted story for the line, "Song of Deborah," featuring the Old Testament's only female judge.  Whether you're interested in comics or the Bible or just a rousing story, have a look.

Revisiting

     I got a look at Library Quarterly's full review of Graphic Novels in Your School Library recently, a review I'd only ever seen the first page of previously.  Written by Rebecca Oxley, it's an extended, scholarly take on the book, satisfyingly cogent in both it's praise and it's criticism.  While I must concede that she's got me on my relatively small amount of attention paid to manga and to dealing with challenges to graphic novels in libraries, she also said "Karp is cognizant of diversity throughout the selected works, supporting representation of multiple racial, ethnic, disability, gender, and sexual orientation groups and identities. . . His lessons of how to read, make, and evaluate GN not only legitimize them as invaluable tools, but they teach a new generation of stakeholders that the ability to negotiate within this esteemed art form is itself an emerging twenty-first-century skill."
     Though my book was written only a relatively short time ago, we're are now living in a profoundly different era when it comes to diversity and gender identity.  I'm very happy to know that my messages in those areas remain relevant and useful today, but I'll also say that, having gone back through my book after a number of years, it's bracing just how much is in there that I've completely forgotten about.  There's an assumption, perhaps, that having constructed a book from within your own mind, it sticks with you always.  But I found rereading the book like having a conversation with another man, my younger self, who retains ideas I've long since assimilated into my practice and thus given little thought to.  It's somewhat alarming to find out that my younger self still has plenty to teach me.     
 

    

Satisfaction

     The most satisfying thing about being an educator is seeing a former student achieve well-deserved success.  One of my former graduate students recently posted this piece for the Scholastic blog on a subject close to my heart.  It's nice to know there are such thoughtful and incisive people at the vanguard of this issue.

Review: Graphic Novels In Your School Library

     So, after turning up a few new quotes for my novels for the last two posts, I'll end the little series with something about Graphic Novels In Your School Library by Rebecca Oxley at the Library Quarterly.  She says "it concentrates the history of the form with spectacular brevity and specifically targets the school environment, providing far more than just reader advisory . . . Karp maintains a steady and judicious hand . . .  [he] has done a great service to teachers, school and public librarians, administrators, parents, and students by providing a solid grounding for later generations to build upon. I highly recommend it."

Graphic Novels in Your School Library Reviews

     Guess I should be checking in more often, but I just recently stumbled across two reviews for Graphic Novels in Your School Library.   Kids & Books calls it "smart, accessible, and comprehensive."  The Library Quarterly: Information, Community, Policy, meanwhile, says "[a] much needed book . . . accessible, to the point, and playful in its subtle humor."

Red Handed

     I wrote about Matt Kindt's fantastic monthly comic Mind Mgmt last thanksgiving.  Mr. Kindt's newest graphic novel, Red Handed: The Fine Art of Strange Crimes, comes out in May and should absolutely not be missed.  Filled with vignettes that chronicle the bizarre crimes perpetrated in the small town of Red Wheelbarrow and the investigations of the maddeningly unfailing Detective Gould, Mr. Kindt produces something both strange and insightful, something that is filled with compelling psychological truth and a mounting and insurmountable sadness.
     A single glance at one of his gorgeously conceived pages offers a major clue to his success.  Figures are incredibly distinctive as visual characters and yet their outlines feel hazy and rough.  They look both achingly human, but are also slightly warped and unreal.  Foregrounded action is clear and attention-grabbing, while tiny mysteries are often scattered in the background.  Few storytellers working in the form are able to create such full engaging genre narratives while also exploring the nuances of human truth so powerfully. 

Graphic Novels in Your School Library Review

     About Graphic Novels in Your School Library, VOYA said "the author has imparted a college course of material between two covers in an easily understood presentation . . . successfully makes a case for the use of graphic novels in teaching . . . This resource is a terrific addition for school and public libraries."

Graphic Novels in Your School Library Review

      I'm telling you, it's hard to get semi-obscure reference books for a semi-rarefied audience reviewed in this day and age.  It's an extra-sized delight, in that case, when one does pop up, and in Booklist no less, which says "most school libraries will benefit from this accessible and practical manual.  Recommended."

Graphic Novels in Your School Library Review

     It is eminently understandable that people would be quicker (and generally more enthusiastic) to review a novel like Those That Wake than to review a relatively small trade publication like Graphic Novels in Your School Library.  However, the first one has come in from the Midwest Book Review and it reads, in part "Graphic Novels in Your School Library is an excellent and practical start to helping even those who have no idea [where] to begin with these works."

Interview for Graphic Novels in Your School Library

     I recently did an interview with the incomparable Matthew Moffett about Graphic Novels in Your School Library.  The interview was done as part of Matt's show on the YALSA Blog and is available to listen to here.

Graphic Novels in Your School Library

     Graphic Novels in Your School Library, written by yours truly and illustrated by Rush Kress, is available now.  For more information about it and for excerpts from the book, have a look at the page linked here.  If you're interested in a copy for yourself, it's available for order here and at all the other internet book resources you might imagine.