Our Youth Services Librarian, Amber, has thoughts to share on three of her favorite graphic novels.
- Persepolisby Marjane Satrapi
- Gender Queer: a Memoir by Maia Kobabe
- Hey, Kiddo: How I Lost My Mother, Found My Father, and Dealt with Family Addiction by Jarrett J. Krosoczka
I love the way graphic novel memoirs can completely immerse a reader in a historical setting and connect readers to stories in unexpected ways. Three of my very favorite graphic novel memoirs are Persepolis, Gender Queer and Hey, Kiddo which have all been banned/challenged in libraries in Iowa.
I read Persepolis in college and immediately felt a kinship with Marjane’s childhood and personality. However, I was surprised at my complete unfamiliarity with the Iranian Revolution in 1979 (which took place several years before I was born.) Although Marjane Satrapi used very stark (and absolutely stunning) black & white illustrations for her artwork, she was able to impart so much information about the time period, her country, her city, and the complexities of a war that would have been lost to me if I had been left to my imagination. I was able to meet Marjane Satrapi when she lectured at the University of Iowa in 2008, and it is still one of my most cherished memories.
In contrast to Persepolis, my imagination was very familiar with the settings of both Hey Kiddo and Gender Queer whose artists are similar in age to me and grew up in ruralish communities in the United States. The illustrations of these coming-of-age stories helped to ground me as I learned about young people’s experiences with identity and family that were different from my own. However, what left me in awe with both of these books is the honest portrayals of important conversations that teenagers sometimes need to have with their loved ones and with themselves.
Want to know more about Persepolis, Gender Queer, and Hey Kiddo? Check out the following descriptions provided by the publishers.
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
Here in one volume: Marjane Satrapi’s best-selling, internationally acclaimed memoir in-comic-strips. Persepolis is the story of Satrapi’s unforgettable childhood and coming of age within a large and loving family in Tehran during the Islamic Revolution; of the contradictions between private and public life in a country plagued by political upheaval; of her high school years in Vienna, facing the trials of adolescence far from her family; of her homecoming—both sweet and terrible; and, finally, of her self-imposed exile from her beloved homeland. It is the chronicle of a girlhood and adolescence at once outrageous and familiar, a young life entwined with the history of her country yet filled with the universal trials and joys of growing up.
Edgy, searingly observant, and candid, often heartbreaking but threaded throughout with raw humor and hard-earned wisdom, Persepolis is “a dazzling singular achievement” (Salon) from one of the most highly regarded, uniquely talented graphic artists at work today. – Pantheon
Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe
In 2014, Maia Kobabe, who uses e/em/eir pronouns, thought that a comic of reading statistics would be the last autobiographical comic e would ever write. At the time, it was the only thing e felt comfortable with strangers knowing about em. Now, Gender Queer is here. Maia’s intensely cathartic autobiography charts eir journey of self-identity, which includes the mortification and confusion of adolescent crushes, grappling with how to come out to family and society, bonding with friends over erotic gay fanfiction, and facing the trauma and fundamental violation of pap smears.
Started as a way to explain to eir family what it means to be nonbinary and asexual, Gender Queer is more than a personal story: it is a useful and touching guide on gender identity—what it means and how to think about it—for advocates, friends, and humans everywhere. – Oni Press
Hey Kiddo by Jarret Krosoczka
In kindergarten, Jarrett Krosoczka’s teacher asks him to draw his family, with a mommy and a daddy. But Jarrett’s family is much more complicated than that. His mom is an addict, in and out of rehab, and in and out of Jarrett’s life. His father is a mystery — Jarrett doesn’t know where to find him, or even what his name is. Jarrett lives with his grandparents — two very loud, very loving, very opinionated people who had thought they were through with raising children until Jarrett came along.
Jarrett goes through his childhood trying to make his non-normal life as normal as possible, finding a way to express himself through drawing even as so little is being said to him about what’s going on. Only as a teenager can Jarrett begin to piece together the truth of his family, reckoning with his mother and tracking down his father.
Hey, Kiddo is a profoundly important memoir about growing up in a family grappling with addiction, and finding the art that helps you survive. – Graphix