Our January bookclub started with a visit from London Public Library's Marketing Department, documenting an evening at the Masonville branch. Thanks to Rita Verhulst for taking this wonderful photo of us all smiling!
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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.
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:
- Lewis Carroll's Alice Through the Looking Glass. This will be put on as a play adapted by James Reaney (Canadian poet, playwright who was born in Stratford but lived for many years here in London) this season at the Stratford Festival!
- As a special treat, on Tuesday, March 11, Stratford will offer an Alice Through the Looking Glass workshop for ages 9 - 12 years right here at the Masonville library. If you have younger siblings or are 12, you can register starting March 1st.
- Meanwhile, we'll have fun on Wed. February 19, 7 - 8:30 pm discussing this classic and creating a whimsical craft!
Cheers,
Linda B.
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