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| Masonville's Mother Daughter Bookclub, January 15, 2014 |
GRAPHIC NOVELS! What talented mothers and daughters! We had a great time creating storyboards for our own graphic novel ideas after our discussion of the various books we'd read.
Instead of all reading the same graphic novel we each read a different one. Some of us read manga , others chose books like
Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis -- we read everything from Pokemon to
Essex County by Jeff Lemire.
- We discussed briefly whether or not there was a gender bias in boys having a preference for this format?
- Some of us preferred to imagine characters and settings ourselves rather than see them drawn -- one participant said it was like preferring the book over the movie, you wanted to develop your own idea of the character in your mind.
- Some of us were new to the experience of reading graphic novels and found it a challenge to read the illustrations while also taking in the text.
Some very creative and engaging stories were told and drawn when we settled down with storyboards and a few ideas on the whiteboard. Theme/plot ideas to draw out stories for inspiration included:
The Argument, Shoplifting, Who Broke it?, Just Try it (On), The Blanket, Getting Lost, The Family Dinner, The (Car) Trip, How to Keep a Secret. Each group created their own unique story.
SHOPPING FOR A DRESS FOR GRADE 8 GRADUATION: One storyboard started with a memory. While the mother pleaded "Just try it on!", the daughter kept coming out of the change room in her street clothes after finding each dress did not fit with HER idea of a grad dress. Big bows! The wrong colour! After driving home in tears of frustration (both mother and daughter) the pair decided to draw up a contract. They arrived at agreed upon behaviour (for each of them!) that would work for success in finding the elusive graduation dress. The contract worked! In the last panel the daughter is happily wearing the PERFECT dress...
GRANDMOTHER'S CHAIR: One mother daughter pair drew on a compelling story passed down through their family. I had just finished reading
Art Spiegelman's graphic novels Maus, so their graphic novel idea was particularly moving. It was the story of a grandmother who protected her son (a member of the Belgian resistance) from arrest by not moving from her chair!
One evening the Gestapo stormed their home searching for evidence. In fact, the son had come home with some important documents that would have linked him to the resistance but he had left them in his jacket pocket. The grandmother was a large woman who loved to cook and eat! She sat, with a forbidding look to the Gestapo, in her usual chair. While they searched and turned the house upside down they didn't dare ask the old grandmother to rise from her seat. She stared them down. The Gestapo left empty-handed. Where were the documents? Where was the jacket? Hanging right on the back of Grandmother's chair -- she had been sitting on the pocket of the coat, right on top of the papers the whole while! What a story! Perhaps some day this duo will finish their drawings and get it published!
There were some lighthearted, funny stories too -- a floating toaster in outer space, a glass owl ornament sitting on a mantel that somehow ended up in pieces on the floor...We could have drawn and told stories all evening! Great collaborations!
FEBRUARY TITLE:
MARCH TITLE: Governor General Award Winning novel
The Unlikely Hero of Room 13B by Teresa Toten!
Check out Teresa's website! You can pick up your copy at our next meeting: Wed. Feb. 19, 7 pm in the Neill Room.
Cheers,
Linda B.
