Book club hasn't tackled a graphic offering...until now. We read Shaun Tan's Tales From Outer Suburbia, a collection of out-there short stories.
While reading it, I thought it was fine. The stories were OK. The pictures were pretty. But it didn't stay with me. Until I started to talk about it.
We started with the poetry story, which is a poem itself. The idea being that all the poetry people write and throw away or hide gets collected in a big ball rolling around full of thoughts and feelings. We said you could use the story as an intro into writing poetry. What is poetry for? Who is it for? How do you really "do" poetry? This is one way:
Then there was the story of the exchange student who left quickly without the host family knowing if he enjoyed his time...until they found this:
And my favorite illustration, of a boy lying in the indentation a whale (yes, whale) made in his front lawn:
Turns out, even though I don't have words to quote, the stories, the images, and the feeling are still with me.
Next on the list is classic science fiction: Ender's Game.
"Pictures must not be too picturesque."
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Ralph Waldo Emerson
This is one area I haven't tackled - the graphic novel. Where do I even start? And these won't be the same AT ALL on my Kobo reader, that's for sure.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if you can even get them on your reader? It would be strange indeed.
ReplyDeleteWhere to start?
First maybe with graphic interpretations of novels? My favorite by far is Ray Bradbury's Farenheit 451 (with a great intro by Ray).
Then possibly with some of my favorites like: Stitches and Skim.
Or other people's favorites like: Persepolis and Asterios Polyp (beeeauutiful illustrations about architecture and other stuff).