I continue to be exasperated by the amount of graphic novels that are out there. I really feel like these books do nothing to challenge kids. They’re simply picture books for 4th grade plus. Today, I write about 4 different graphic novels by best-selling author Raina Telgemeier. I'm not even going to waste more of my time using my typical format.
First two on the chopping block are related: Smile and Sisters.
Again, like this piece of crap, these book are not novels. They’re short stories with pictures. While it’s much more appropriate for grades 4-8 than Anya’s Ghost, there is absolutely nothing in this book that challenges the reader to participate. The characters are shallow and static, they deal with every-day issues that barely scratch the surface, and we really don’t get inside their heads, despite all of the “think” bubbles used in the series. Both Smile and Sisters present short, shallow plotlines accompanied by comic-book graphics intended to entertain the reader instead of challenge.
These books are such a let down. They teach kids to love drama (which, consequently, is the title of her 3rd graphic novel). There is no depth, no real adventure, no heroic virtue. It’s just a plain old every-day kid who deals with plain old every-day problems in a bratty and selfish way. Props to the author for using her talents to tell about her life, but there’s really nothing exciting about it. It’s just there to entertain and breed the seeds of drama in young lives. I really wanted more from this. I finished reading with a feeling of “that’s it?” What has this book offering to teach us? Nothing. How am I becoming a better person because I’ve read it? I’m not. It’s teaching kids to settle for mediocrity.
They do nothing but further convince me that we’ll never have graphic novels in our home library. Ever. Compilations of comic strips like Foxtrot or Pearls Before Swine are a little bit different. You’re looking for a punch line. You’re looking for entertainment and clever wit. You’re not looking for a novel.
UGH. I’m glad I only WASTED about an hour reading each of these books.
Not surprised or impressed again with Telgemeier’s crap short-story-paired-with-pictures idea of literature. This one certainly lives up to the book’s title, and it is, in fact, a double entendre. The main setting revolves around the middle school’s dramatic production, and the situations that the protagonist encounters are filled with middle school drama (crushes, freak outs, breakups, etc). I’ve come up with a term for these kinds of books. I like to call them “crapic” novels, and this one is a particularly smelly, steaming pile.
One sentence summary:
7th grade girl crushes on jock, falls in love with gay boy, gay boy stands in for female lead during play last minute, kisses male lead in front of everyone, and drama ensues.
Again, I polished this one off in about an hour. Here are some thoughts. I really don't want to waste my time with this one, either.
*eye roll* within the first 12 pages, we learn that the protagonist is in middle school, and she and another boy have been kissing. Ok. When you’re in middle school, you’re between the ages of 11 and 13. What the hell. Yes, I understand crushes, and yes, I understand that hormones are raging, and yes, even I had a “boyfriend” in 8th grade, which makes me a big hypocrite. But what the hell is the point at that age? It's not like you're going to get married by 10th grade. It's not like either person involved in a middle school relationship is mature enough to handle their own insecurities, let alone those of their significant other. Just what the heck?! It’s like these books are encouraging kids to become self-aware on an adult level about their own sexuality (much like they did in Brave New World *shudder*). They are CHILDREN. MINORS. They shouldn’t even be experiencing that kind of stuff. It's not moral! Crap like this just makes me weep for the future. Shortly after, we find out that the protagonist is in 7th grade and the boy she likes is in 8th grade. So they’re what, 12 and 13? Ew. She then meets some twin boys who are really great at singing. And here it is on page 65. Jesse, the stereotypical flamboyant outgoing drama boy (not the boy the protagonist kissed) comes out and says he likes boys. HE IS TWELVE. What the hell could he possibly know about what love really is? (Self-sacrifice, trying to get the other person to heaven?). Gah! Twelve year olds don't pay bills, don't drive cars, can't manage a household, or do other adult things. How can we expect them to make such huge decisions regarding their sexuality at such a young age? In our society, these things are rarely contested, but they're instead celebrated in a frenzied manner.
Due to one of the actors in the play throwing a hissy fit, the understudy not being available (when the heck does that even happen? Understudies are supposed to be there in case anything happens!), and everyone else freaking out and lacking the ability to pull it all together, Jesse goes out on stage in a dress to sing the girl’s part with West, the male lead in the play, and they eventually kiss. Barf. After that, the kids attend their middle school dance. Callie goes with Jesse, but he eventually abandons her to go talk to West, who is also having gender identity issues. The book ends and everyone is happy.
I really dislike how casually Telgemeier approaches this issue. There's no depth, no struggle, nothing past a skimming of the surface. Typical Telgemeier. Blarg. This book is not appropriate for middle-schoolers. Middle-schoolers are confused enough, they don't need gender identity issues thrown in the mix and celebrated by a comic-book making hack who really doesn't know what it means to write a novel.
I'd like to just say right now that because I dislike this book about gender identity/homosexuality issues does NOT mean that I hate those who are gay or are struggling with identity issues. As a devout Catholic, I am called to love and respect ALL persons and treat them with dignity. However, respecting the person does NOT mean that I tolerate or respect that kind of lifestyle or the sinful act itself.
Per The Catechism of the Catholic Church:
2357 Homosexuality refers to relations between men or between women who experience an exclusive or predominant sexual attraction toward persons of the same sex. It has taken a great variety of forms through the centuries and in different cultures. Its psychological genesis remains largely unexplained. Basing itself on Sacred Scripture, which presents homosexual acts as acts of grave depravity, tradition has always declared that "homosexual acts (not persons) are intrinsically disordered." They are contrary to the natural law. They close the sexual act to the gift of life. They do not proceed from a genuine affective and sexual complementarity. Under no circumstances can they be approved. (emphasis and parentheticals mine)
2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition. (emphasis mine)
2359 Homosexual persons are called to chastity (just like we all are). By the virtues of self-mastery that teach them inner freedom, at times by the support of disinterested friendship, by prayer and sacramental grace, they can and should gradually and resolutely approach Christian perfection. (parenthetical mine).
I think that most of the time, if we were to take these types of situations as teachable moments to direct kids who are struggling, it might turn out for the better. Our sexuality is ordered in a very specific and holy way:
I. "Male and Female He Created Them . . ."
2331 "God is love and in himself he lives a mystery of personal loving communion. Creating the human race in his own image . . .. God inscribed in the humanity of man and woman the vocation, and thus the capacity and responsibility, of love and communion."
"God created man in his own image . . . male and female he created them";He blessed them and said, "Be fruitful and multiply";"When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Man when they were created."
2332 Sexuality affects all aspects of the human person in the unity of his body and soul. It especially concerns affectivity, the capacity to love and to procreate, and in a more general way the aptitude for forming bonds of communion with others.
2333 Everyone, man and woman, should acknowledge and accept his sexual identity. Physical, moral, and spiritual difference and complementarity are oriented toward the goods of marriage and the flourishing of family life. the harmony of the couple and of society depends in part on the way in which the complementarity, needs, and mutual support between the sexes are lived out.
2334 "In creating men 'male and female,' God gives man and woman an equal personal dignity.""Man is a person, man and woman equally so, since both were created in the image and likeness of the personal God."
2335 Each of the two sexes is an image of the power and tenderness of God, with equal dignity though in a different way. the union of man and woman in marriage is a way of imitating in the flesh the Creator's generosity and fecundity: "Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh."All human generations proceed from this union.
2336 Jesus came to restore creation to the purity of its origins. In the Sermon on the Mount, he interprets God's plan strictly: "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I say to you that every one who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart."What God has joined together, let not man put asunder. The tradition of the Church has understood the sixth commandment as encompassing the whole of human sexuality.
Drama does absolutely nothing for no one. It might incite a few middle schoolers to be more dramatic with their lives. It might entertain them for a few hours, but it does nothing to challenge. It simply does nothing more than promote stereotypes of those who are interested in theatre and people who struggle with their sexual identity. It's a WASTE of paper and time.
Overall, these 4 books by Telgemeier are the same concept: crappy teenage drama that's a waste of time to read. Her books do nothing to challenge or inform the reader. Blechk. I want those 4 hours of my life back.
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