YA graphic novel
If you're a long term reader of this blog you know that I consider the concept that only emergent readers need pictures in their books 📚 and that the transition to words only volumes is the mark of literary maturity to be dangerously dumb ass. Scientists have discovered that different parts of our 🧠 process words and pictures and that the two together convey far more information than words alone ever can...
...plus, c'mon, admit it, the pictures 📸 make reading 📚 more fun. If you're anything like me, you've had the experience of having to read (for school or work or because someone you're connected to wrote it) a words only manuscript that you desperately want to put down before your eyeballs roll back into your skull 💀...
...Ariel Aberg-Riger's America Redux: Visual Stories From Our Dynamic History is the book that proves my theory perfectly 🥰 💞. The book is a vibrant collection of two page spread collages where images and words carry equal weight rather than the former simply supporting the latter.
The first (after a very short introduction) chapter, The Good Old Days, blazed up like fireworks 🎆 illuminating the night 🌙 sky. A photographed building is enveloped by flames drawn in shades of red and yellow. Readers learn that it's the United Daughters of the Confederacy headquarters. The narrative begins with the story of that group: how they started in a South angered by the loss of the Civil War and Reconstruction; how they erected statues of their heroes, raised their children with a lost cause narrative, and successfully got textbooks banned and teachers fired for a century--in both the South and the North.
One of the most chilling two page spreads is also one of the most banal. The pictures 📸 📷 🖼 of two white children, a girl and a boy, are juxtaposed with a drawing and content descriptions from an actually approved and used textbook.
"The 1961 edition of Know Alabama, the Alabama State Board-approved history textbook, describes the Ku Klux Klan as The loyal white men of Alabama and plantation life as one of the happiest ways of life in Alabama before the War between the States. Fourth-grade readers are asked to imagine a day in the life on a beautiful plantation where their father is the Master and their mother is the mistress. It's a world where, yes, there were slaves, but Most of them were treated kindly And the mistress is the best friend the [word I don't use; substitute Black] have."
The next pages detail the valiant efforts of Black leaders to get this deadly garbage changed, only to be charged with "hypersensitivity" and tie it in with today's censorship.
Eugene and I had just returned from camp. I'd just played with Tobago and done my tick due diligence. I had dishes, laundry, and other stuff to catch up with. I didn't even know what I'd make up for supper...
...I was just going to skim the book...
...as if I could put it down. Other chapters beautifully lived up to the promise of the first. A couple that got to me the most were:
*Traditional Family Values that starts with the family made famous by the basal readers of my childhood or a reasonable facsimile. Dad (even rocking a 👔 and button down while recreating with the fam), Dick, Jane, and Spot gaze adoringly at Mom (who frankly looks like she's doubled up on the mother's little helper). The text segues neatly into eugenics and the forced sterilization of those considered unfit for motherhood. On one page Fannie Lou Hamer, who herself was a victim of this cruel practice, is shown testifying that, "Six out of every ten [word I don't use; substitute Black] women were taken to the Sunflower City Hospital to be sterilized for no reason at all."...
...and at the very end you learn that coerced sterilization is still being performed on women in jail and immigrant detention centers.
*As American As describes the forced incarceration of all "persons of Japanese ancestry" during World War II.
The beautiful marriage of words and images and the truth telling alone would be amazing. But Aberg-Riger also reminds readers that many cultures see time differently than the slice, dice, and pinpoint way we do.
"Notions of nonlinear time crop up everywhere from the Mayans to the Celts, Chinese thought to classical Indian philosophy, African conceptions to Dine traditions. There is a kaleidoscope of philosophies, all with their own interpretations and variations, but one thing that comes up again and again is the belief that time is a continual, ever-evolving relationship, not a series of isolated, fixed points on a line."
This concept is so liberating! I know I'll spend a lot of time pondering its implications for life and the changes our society needs so desperately.
Aberg-Riger dedicated America Redux to us, her readers, with the assertion that we have more power than we know. She also issues this invitation:
"Forms change us, and I hope this book changes you. A poem has the ability to shape us into the truth just as much as (if not more so than) a list of facts. I hope you question these stories, this book. I hope your questions turn into creation--of conversation, of art, of action."
I don't know about you, but I intend to take her up on this invitation.
On a purrrsonal note, this week I had the opportunity to conduct two evening workshops for the Upward Bound students. Monday's was journals and vision boards which went really well. Students were engaged and having fun. Last evening's was Banned Books Bookmarks. I had the second largest group, outdrawn only by karaoke. My people were highly engaged and passionate. I started by sharing a chapter from the book. Then we talked and made bookmarks. It was so much fun. We shared the basement with karaoke so we had 🎶 🎵. My favorite bookmark is one a student helped me with. I couldn't think of how to draw a frog so she drew one for me. (Jules)
My favorite says cool cats 🐈 😻 🐈⬛️ read banned books 📚. (Tobago)
A great big shout out goes out to the students who participated enthusiastically in the workshops.
Tobago and Jules Hathaway
Sent from my U.S.Cellular© Smartphone
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