My mother, a dedicated 5th grade teacher, deplored comic books and refused to allow them in her classroom. “All kids do is look at the pictures; they don’t learn to read that way”.
Dear old Mom. She was right about some things, (yellow is not my color) but dead wrong about comics…or graphic novels as we call them now. Not only do kids read them, they read them in Japanese.
Yup, American teens in places like Queens New York are so inspired by Japanese manga that they’re studying Japanese, giving themselves Japanese names and even choosing colleges based on their Asian studies programs. Read about it in this New York Times story.
Lesley W.
