AnimeNewsNetwork as an article about TOKYOPOP’s Fruits Basket series reaching two million books in print!  Amazing!  Fruits Basket was one of the first manga that I ever read and one of the first I purchased for the library. 

I love the quote from the author:

When TIME Magazine asked Ms. Takaya her feelings on having the
top-selling manga in the U.S., she responded, “That definitely flatters
and pleases me. Thank you very much. As for a reason, I can’t clearly
distinguish one, but if people read Fruits Basket and think ‘I like
this,’ then that alone is enough to bring me joy.”

This series certainly brings a lot of people around the world joy too.

The New York Times has an article on the huge push from DC Comics to promote Minx, a new line of graphic novels for girls.  Cecil Castellucci, a great teen novelist, has been commissioned to write them.  Hurrah! 

I will be very interested to see what this new venture creates, especially seeing that it is said to be the largest promotional push that DC Comics has done in 30 years! 

An interesting AP article on the topic of increasing challenges to graphic novels in libraries, shows that people are finding graphic illustrations of adult themes much more provocative than the same actions in written form. They have some examples of adult graphic novels that are being questioned in public libraries.
When I went to library school, I learned that if a librarian is doing their job and truly selecting items that will serve even the marginal people in their community then you definitely can expect to have materials questioned. Sounds like this new director at the library has pushed the envelope a bit more than her predecessor. Complaints about materials aren’t the end of the world, they may just be the indication that you are doing your job extremely well.
Via LISNews.org

Check out the 2006 Graphic Spotlight from Kirkus.  Graphic novels appropriate for teens are scattered among those that are not, and if you are looking for titles for children, scroll all the way down to page 22.  Keep an eye out for their Best of 2006 Children’s Books list that will be released in early December. 

ALA has a new document to help librarians deal with the intellectual freedom issues that come along with offering graphic novels: Dealing with Challenges to Graphic Novels. Their advice is simple but effective: be prepared. They go into details about dealing with the media, language for answering pointed questions, and how to deal with complaints in an effective way.

Infoblog has a podcast featuring Michael Cart on the best graphic novels where he defines the genre of graphic novels and gives some of the best of the best. No download is needed, you can listen to the podcast right in your browser.

Kirkus has just released its 2006 Graphic Spotlight which contains reviews of graphic novels for children, teens and adults. Some of the children’s graphic novels look like great fun, though I wish that there were more of them listed.
One warning. This is a very large pdf file. Make sure you have Adobe installed and then be very patient. Have a book nearby to read while you wait. 🙂

How Do Children’s Get the Book Bug? is not an article about research.  Rather, it is about a family that reads, in both English and Welsh.  This is lovely stuff!  I especially enjoy the description of them reading aloud at the beach:  “they were listening open-mouthed, staring into the distance.”