Nothing to Declare

Head Librarian Sarah Eldred tells us all we need to know about graphic novels. Graphic novels have a firm and dedicated space in the library at Teddies; with around 650 titles the section has become very popular!

Graphic novels are primarily created for adults and young adults. They use words and pictures simultaneously or ‘sequential art’ to tell a story and just like other books they come in all shapes, sizes, genres and subjects and can be fiction, non-fiction, biographical or adapted works. They come in a range of art styles, could be in black and white or in colour, could be standalone stories or form part of a series. Absolutely anyone and everyone! For example, pupils who enjoy art might read graphic novels to develop appreciation of different art forms. For those studying Shakespeare reading the stories reimagined in manga style might be a fun way to get into the text and for pupils who want to develop their reading skills in other languages being able to determine meaning from pictures could be a very good way to help develop vocabularies. Manga is a specific style of artwork which originated in Japan. The animated version of manga is called anime and both are hugely popular with teens. Unfortunately, both manga and anime have a reputation for being somewhat risqué but there are plenty of options which are suitable and we stock as many as we can find in the library. Manga series can be really long - some of them run into hundreds of books! Because they originated in Japan many manga books are read from back-to-front and from right-to-left.

When most people start reading graphic novels they will typically read them quickly. Interestingly, in the opposite way to reading a text-only book, the