Graphic novels I talked about on 'The River Is Lit' summer reading podcast

Recently, I produced a podcast giving some summer reading recommendations, and unsurprisingly, most of mine were all graphic novels. If you’d like to listen to the entire podcast you can do so here, otherwise, here’s a summary of the books I talked about.

You can buy most of them from our independent Bookshop.org shop, supporting Medway River Lit festival bookshop, Plunder in Ramsgate.

Drawn to Change the World edited by Emma Reynolds

Drawn To Change The World is a graphic novel collection telling stories about 16 youth climate activists and it's edited by Emma Reynolds. The idea behind the book is that the “climate crisis is reaching a critical tipping point, and you might have heard of the countless amazing young people who are taking action and creating change. Emma Reynolds shines a spotlight on 16 incredible youth activists from all around the world who are fighting to protect the planet and all life on Earth. These inspiring true stories highlight how young people can really change the world.”

Each story is illustrated by a different artist and it's accompanied by facts and pictures that explain the science, so although it's advertised as for ages 8 to 12, I think it's accessible for older people, it's not dumbing down, it's also a book that you could share with your children. To quote from the book:

 “What can you do? When asking "What can I do?" It's really important to think about this quote from writer historian and activist Rebecca Solnit. A climate story we urgently need is one that exposes who is actually responsible for climate chaos. Oxfam reports that over the past 25 years the carbon impact of the top 1% of the wealthiest human beings was twice that of the bottom percent. By saying we are all responsible, we avoid the fact that the global majority of us don't need to change much, but the minority needs to change a  lot. It's also important to remember how effective the propaganda of fossil fuel giant BP was in coining the phrase ‘carbon footprint’, which shifted the responsibility to the individual and away from the fossil fuel companies responsible for the crisis in the first place. So, bearing this in mind, there are absolutely things that you can do as an individual working in communities and raising  your voice that can make a huge difference, just like the activists in this book.”

Each story is illustrated in a different style. It tells us about the young people from various  different countries and what they've done, and that's great because, one of the things that people always point out is that they’ve of heard of Greta Thunberg, and that's about it regarding young people, although are there are  loads of young people all around the world from different communities and different backgrounds  who are each working in their communities. It's a really nice little book for all ages. A great primer to give an idea of what  you can do. ‘There is no planet B’ it says  in a tiny little box at the bottom.

Days of the Bagnold Summer by Joff Winterhart

We picked up Days of the Bagnold Summer by Joff Winterhart, in a secondhand shop in Whitstable a couple of weeks  ago, and it just looked interesting. Mainly because being a bit of a printing geek, I was  quite interested and intrigued by the landscape  format, rather than it being portrait  A4 or A5, it’s unusual that it's a landscape format.  

The blurb on the back:  "when someone looks back and writes a history of the summer, two people they will almost certainly leave out, are Sue and Daniel Bagnold. So begins Joff Winterhart's sublimely funny and perceptive graphic novel Days of the Bagnold Summer. Sue 52, works in a library, Daniel 15, is still at school. This was the summer holidays Daniel was due to  spend with his father and his father's pregnant new wife in Florida. When they cancel his trip, Sue and Daniel face six long weeks together. Joff Winterhart perfectly captures the ennui, the tension, the pathos, and yes the affection, of the mother-son relationship. Already well known for his animated films like Violet and Turquoise, he here shows himself to be a comics author of extraordinary talent."

And a quote from Posy Simmonds about it is "'Days of the Bagnold Summer' is extremely original, funny, touching and beautifully observed, in both the drawing   and the writing. There's probably no truer portray of teenage and parental angst."

Each story or chapter is just a page with six panels, and the panels are black and white no background hardly at all, so it's focusing on people's faces, close-ups of what they're doing; close-ups of what they're looking at. Daniel is a big heavy metal fan, so he gets involved in a heavy metal band, and a lot of the pictures are Daniel just being a grumpy teenager and not being happy that he's had to stay at home with his mum over the summer, when he could have been in America. And his mum's vibe is 'oh I'm just you know, I'm not leading a very fulfilled life since my husband left me, and my son resents me and won't communicate with me', which is probably quite a familiar story to a lot of mums of teenage boys, mums and dads of teenage boys. But it's nice though, because over the summer they do grow closer, and they do start talking to each other. Daniel washes his hair by the end of the actual book, as they have to go to a wedding. The very last panel, is the only single page image, and it's just a picture of him and his mum walking off into the distance together, and it just says ‘the day after tomorrow Daniel goes back to school’. 

So, over the summer, they've come to a new understanding of being in the same house together, and not quite hating it as much as they did initially. It's charming, it's a few years old now, it's from 2012 and it was made into a movie, which is quite understated and delightful too.

Through the Woods by Emily Carroll

A New York Times bestseller and Observer graphic novel of the month, Through the Woods is a collection of short stories by Emily Carroll. I didn't know Emily Carroll, but she's an award-winning comic creator, and this is a collection of horror short stories.

A quote  from the back is "Enchanting. Carroll's talent is immense. The mood of these stories is Brothers Grimm, by the way of Patricia Highsmith or Stephen King, while her drawings seem to channel Edward  Gory." That was Rachel Cook in the Observer, and I absolutely love Carroll’s drawings. 

It's a full colour graphic novel, making lots of use of primary colours, like blue, red, a lot of black, as well and black and white, and it's interlinked short stories where people are getting lost in the woods, or meeting mysterious strangers, who might or might not be monsters. The art is just lovely, there are some pages where there are no words at all. 

The words that there are, are incorporated into the story very skilfully, the use of space and just black background is really effective as well, and it’s really scary. So this one is definitely my graphic novel, but also my book recommendation of the podcast.

After reading Through the woods, I also tracked down A guest in the house by EM Carroll, who is the same person. And I wrote about it in my previous blog. A guest in the house is also amazing and very, very unnerving. I didn't really know the genre of horror graphic novels, but it's definitely something that because of this author, I'll be looking further into.