Librarian brews the alphabet…

Librarian Brews the Alphabet © Coll Hamilton

One of my lovely friends, Coll Hamilton, is a super talented artist and he has created this little image of me for my blog.

It is inspired by my love of tea and books.  I love it! 🙂

Thanks Coll!  You can check out more of Coll’s work on his website – there’s even some cool Doctor Who illustrations on there too 🙂

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Graphic novels come of age…

I’ll be honest, I was a bit disheartened when a member of my book group chose a graphic novel as our next big read. I was worried that it would fail to capture my imagination and that I’d be unable to care about the characters or the story.

How wrong was I? Tales from the Farm by Jeff Lemire is a wonderfully heart-felt story about Lester, a young boy who goes to live with his uncle on a farm in Canada, following the death of his mother.

The illustrations are brilliant and really help to convey the loneliness and alienation felt by the central characters; and their joy as they escape into a fantasy world of superheroes and alien invasions.

It made me think about the importance of stocking a diverse range of graphic novels in public libraries. All too often these collections are made up of popular Japanese manga novels which have mass appeal and are more likely to drive issue figures.

Tales from the Farm offers something a bit different for the genre and has the potential to inspire readers; helping some to come to terms with the transition from childhood to adulthood; and offering others the opportunity to reflect on their early years and childhood fantasies of space exploration and saving the world…a time when anything was possible!

Either way, I feel that graphic novels like this add genuine value to public library collections and to the lives of those who read them.

Thanks to Coll for opening my mind to the wonderful world of graphic novels!

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