For week 5 of the ComicMix Challenged Challenge, we discuss Kim Dong Hwa’s graphic novel, The Color of Earth. Aside from the over use of flower metaphors, we loved the book. It’s about a Ehwa, a girl living in Korea with her widowed mom. The book deals with Ehwa growing up and so there’s talk of puberty and all that kind of related stuff that apparently makes some adults very uncomfortable. Uncomfortable enough for this to be the second-most challenged book. It’s a coming of age story and so we’re stumped as to why the essential parts of coming of age are so scary for the intended readership (who, you know, have just come of age or are in the process). But we try to break it down in our video.
It is officially summer for us! Yay! So, we thought this would be the perfect time to tell you about our summer reading plans. In this week’s episode, we tell you about the CBLDF and announce our Challenged Graphic Novel Reading Challenge. Our hope is that kids and parents (and everyone else) will read along with us. Because you seriously can’t question that book be suitable for library shelves if you haven’t read it, right?
This summer we will be reading 8 graphic novels that have been challenged or banned in school libraries and then every week we will discuss one of the titles. We’ll talk about why it was challenged, how to best talk about the questioned topics or themes in the book with your kids. We’ll also tell you from a kid’s perspective how we viewed the appropriateness of the books for us, because sometimes adults forget what they could handle and understand when they were our age.
We also hope that you will support everyone’s right to choose what they want to read by doing some sleuthing in your local or school library. Take a look at our reading list and see which of the books are available for you to check out. You can post your findings in Social Media like Facebook and Twitter (@ComicMix and @The_Tweeks) with #InTheStacks and/or #ComicMixChallengedChallenge, hopefully generating further discussion. We also think you should check out the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund’s site. We talk more about them in the episode.
