Flower Mound sounds like a manga title, but it’s really a town in Texas that just had a manga day at the local library. Some good comments from youth librarian Teresa Chiv:
Chiv said she considers manga to be at a higher level than many traditional youth novels. Because of its unique presentation style, manga is very good with reluctant readers, she said.
“The many pictures give clues to the readers about the text, allowing the reader to comprehend more sophisticated vocabulary than they would be able to decode in a traditional novel,” Chiv said.
Clearly Chiv doesn’t subscribe to the comics-is-crap line. Neither does her friend Shannon Terrill, who works in the Irving library:
Many characters have skeletons in their closets. A character typically goes through several layers of development,” said Terrill, of Irving.
The Japanese graphic novels — comic book-style bound tomes — are filled with themes that involve conflict, struggle, love and peer pressure. American animators and children’s book writers don’t often deal with those subjects in such real terms, Terrill said.
“Manga definitely does not try to flower up reality or the battle of good and evil,” she said. “A romantic relationship almost always fades, and a hero almost always dies.”
Why would we want that?
Alisa Mask, 13, of Double Oak sat next to a stack of 18 borrowed mangas Sunday. She said she appreciates the realism of mangas because they help her deal with problematic situations.
“In mangas, I learn a lot of stuff that could happen to me and people around me, like problems with depression or dating problems,” Mask said. “In one manga I read that in moments like these, you should tell your parents what’s going on with you.”
Teenagers set their bullshit detectors on stun. If you talk down to them, they know it. And while most manga aren’t all that realistic (we have no giant robots in our public schools), if the kids see it as authentic, they may actually glean a bit of genuine insight.
