Or: Reading Across the Generations

Millennials aren’t only more “wired” than many of their elders, they also often read different types of works. One popular option is books combining creative illustrations with smaller amounts of text: graphic novels. This is a different way to look at literature, ideas, and the world. Exploring these books can connect generations. Recently I have begun to dip my toes into the unfamiliar waters of these image-based books written for adults, with help from younger friends and relatives, and I have been intrigued by many of the offerings.

• Check out Becoming/Unbecoming by Una. With simple drawings and stark clarity of storytelling, this British offering explores the long-term damage of sexual assault and abuse via the “four horsemen of gender violence — shame, isolation, disbelief, and ridicule.” This is a voice full of pain and a yearning to be heard. Don’t skip the Afterword where Una expresses tenuous hope that society is beginning to see that “there is something embedded deep within the culture that produces eruptions of gendered violence and allows them to flourish,” a perfect tie-in to this era of #MeToo.

• If you can tolerate some crude language and images of female nudity along with the rest of a story, try Habibi by Craig Thompson. It touches upon the bartering of sex for food and necessities, slavery, interracial love, pollution, environmental degradation for profit, and many more topics of contemporary relevance.

• If you are up for pensive rumination coupled with doses of a memoir try What It Is by Lynda Barry. The collagelike collections of words and images on every page are an adventure. Barry is asking herself questions that pop into my head, too. The unexpected questions make the reader look at the most mundane things in a different light. Read and digest this book in small pieces as you stop to let your thoughts develop.

• In Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, and Me by Ellen Forney, Forney chronicles her journey living with and learning to optimally medicate her bipolar disorder and sort out the relationship between creativity and mania while dealing with the social stigma still attached to mental illness. It contains some images that you may find disquieting; flip past those that disturb you to wrestle with the meat of her story.

• History buff? Two Vietnamese perspectives on the war are in Vietnamerica by G.B. Tran.

• Pondering identity? Check out American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang, written for youth.

This is a sampling of books in a very diverse genre that may stimulate thinking, move you to tears or to action, or open conversations. While reading, consider how the style of the artwork connects to the words. How did the author choose it? What would the story be like without the images? Since these books read more quickly, consider reading once for story and a second time to explore the images.

Graphic books are a fine complement to your other reading materials, with the added bonus that you will have a new topic of conversation. And if you just want superheroes or science fiction, those are out there, too, in abundance.

[Note: All books referenced are available through the Ramsey County library