CSLA Research Updates

I've started a CSLA Research Update blog. It's more timely than the committee's emails. Here it is: http://cslaresearchupdate.blogspot.com/

A Word about Print: Graphic Novels are so yesterday

So my son (who just turned 21) and I did the 10% off shopping trip to Target (which means we spent more than the $$ saved), and scanned the book/magazine shelves. Target is my reality check on kids'/teens' reading. Anyway, there were no graphic novels were in site; they used to be present but now they have been replaced by comic books. You remember comic books: those 1940s and '50s items (subversive under McCarthy), including my favorite Junior Illustrated Classics? So my popular culture savant said that parents are more comfortable buying their children comic books because: 1) they remember their own childhood days, 2) illustrated publications have gained more respect (partly my idea), and 3) comic books are more American than graphic novels (that post-9/11 syndrome). So all those librarians who have jumped on the band wagon, watch as the kiddos jump OFF. Realize that my son KNEW that gradated colored T-shirts would become "in" (he was 2 months' ahead of the curve). Figures that librarians would rattle on behind the culture curve. We're built conservative. So the moral of this little tale is "Don't put all your collection eggs into the faddish basket -- unless you're willing to switch baskets quickly." Sort of like using standing English because by the time you decipher teen lingo, it's passe (I'd use an "in" phrase but I know I'd be dated...)