NYC Dept. of Ed. Embraces Graphic Novels

With backing from Barbara Stripling, the director of New York City school libraries, Diamond Book Distributors is currently conducting in-service spring training sessions to hundreds of K–12 school librarians throughout the city’s five boroughs to talk about collection development, lesson plans, and how graphic novels appeal to all levels of readers, says John Shableski, sales manager at Diamond, the largest distributor of English-language comic books. 

Why focus on librarians? “They’re starting with librarians, as they know this is the foundation for the rest of the school,” he adds. “They are also looking to harness the attraction of graphic novels to a new generation of readers—and that graphic novels are a draw for the library.”   

This may be the first time such a large school district has formally endorsed graphic novels in this magnitude, adds Shableski, who, along with colleague Janna Morishima, hosted their first program for about 75 Manhattan-based media specialists on May 7 at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem. Another session on May 20 drew about 100 attendees, and close to 1,000 media specialists are expected to attend their final session on November 4. 

“There are librarians and teachers across the country who have either begun using graphic novels or would like to,” Shableski says. “This validates and justifies the efforts of so many teachers and librarians. It’s as if someone placed a formal seal of approval on the format and said, ‘This is something that really works!”

Another reason for Shableski’s presentations is to convert the few librarians who still view graphic novels with suspicion and to show how they can be used to hook readers. “Some will use graphic novels as a tool to get kids to read ‘real books’ and the rest will understand that graphic novels present a new kind of literacy all together,” he says, adding that even a Shakespeare play in a graphic novel format will help students “discover a brand new perspective of what the Bard was actually trying to describe in his plays.” 

Stripling agrees, but cautions that since graphic novels are still relatively new to the field, librarians need to figure out how they best serve kids—and that includes developing selection criteria. “We need to focus on strategy,” she says. “We need to know why these are good for kids if we’re going to sell them to teachers and administrators.”