This is Dali by Catherine Ingram

A graphic novel treatment is a most appropriate approach to the life of the surrealist artist Salvador Dali. He is remembered for wildly strange art, much of which had elements of humor. Most was oil on canvas, but he also strove to express his own brand of art with his clothing and the design and furnishing of his home. Using a mixture of the most famous Dali images and comic drawings from illustrator Andrew Rae, author Catherine Ingram recounts Dali's strange life in her concise biography This is Dali.

"Outrageous" might be the most appropriate one word to describe Dali. He seems to have enjoyed shocking the public and have no true purpose in life other than self-promotion. About the kindest thing Ingram has to say about Dali, other than he was an artistic genius, was that he was lonely. She points to poor parenting as one reason for his seeming lack of care for others.

Whosoever understands Dali, the author suggests can also understand his art. In This is Dali, she explains the joke behind the melting clocks and suggests that Dali influenced many artists to come, including Alfred Hitchcock and Andy Warhol. I would add that John Pasche probably knew Dali's lips logo when he made a tongue and lips logo for the Rolling Stones. Maybe you'll recognize other ways Dali shaped our world if you give this odd little book a try.

Ingram, Catherine and illustrations by Andrew Rae. This is Dali. Laurence King Publishing, 2014. 80p. ISBN 9781780671093.

The Night Bookmobile by Audrey Niffenegger

I must return the The Night Bookmobile by Audrey Niffenegger today - right away. I checked it out a week ago but just now read it. If I had known how magical and moving it is, I would have read it right away so I could get it back on the graphics novel display quickly. I want others to have a chance to read it.

The act of reading and discovering your books is what The Night Bookmobile is all about. Its central character is Alexandra, a young woman whose difficult relationship with a young man sometimes compels her to walk the streets of Chicago after midnight. On one such evening she discovers a bookmobile in a Winnebago. The wise librarian invites her in, and she stays until dawn longingly scanning a collection that she has already read.

Though I want to get The Night Bookmobile back onto the graphic "novel" display, it is really a short story. Niffenegger first published it in 2004 in the journal Zoetrope All Story, she illustrated it for The Guardian in 2008 and Abrams Comicarts put into book form in 2010. While it creates a dream-like mood and is a bit sad, its existence is a happy fact for my library, which is promoting graphic novels in its adult summer reading program and short stories as this year's feature genre on its reading blog Thommy Ford Reads.

People who enjoy this book by Niffegegger, might also enjoy books by Neil Gaiman. He wrote the promotional paragraph on the back cover for The Night Bookmobile.

Niffenegger, Audrey. The Night Bookmobile. Abrams, 2010. ISBN 9780810996175.

Relish: My Life in the Kitchen by Lucy Knisley

It is Memorial Day, so summer reading is upon us. At the Thomas Ford Library this summer, we will be featuring graphic novels in our adult summer reading program Picture This: Exploring Graphic Novels. Along with the reading of books to earn prizes, we will have some graphic novel events, including an author talk by Lucy Knisley, whose graphic novel memoir Relish: My Life in the Kitchen came out in 2013.

Liking to read authors who come to our library, I borrowed Relish and found it very entertaining. Knisley recounts her admittedly still young life with charm and humor through full-color drawings and well-chosen words. In each chapter, she tells about a period or particular aspect of her life. I kept reading wanting to know more about her mom the chef, her dad the gourmet, and the kitchens in which Knisley has cooked.

Like all food memoirs, Relish includes recipes. Unlike many memoirs, these instructions are heavily illustrated. I particularly like the exploded view of the huevos rancheros and the action-packed telling of how to make pickles.

As you can see, graphic novels are not all super hero tales. With Relish, Knisley has shown that everyday life is a great subject for the genre. It is not alone. Check for graphic novels at your library.

Knisley, Lucy. Relish: My Life in the Kitchen. First Second, 2013. 173p. ISBN 9781596436237.

Special Exits: A Graphic Memoir by Joyce Farmer

I have forgotten who recommended Special Exits: A Graphic Memoir by Joyce Farmer. I think that it was one of my friends on Goodreads or Facebook. If you remember who you are, accept my thanks. Once it reached the top of my stack of books to read, I read from it every chance that I had.

I suspect many people who would really appreciate Special Exits have not seen it. Boomers taking care of their elderly parents are not as a group very aware of graphic novels. That's too bad, because the book dramatizes a situation in which they may find themselves - trying to respectfully manage the lives of people who have lost the ability to care for themselves. The complications are many: bad health, poverty, delusions, loss of memory, reluctance to accept help, etc. The demands are many: sacrifice time, negotiate calmly, tolerate idiosyncrasies, lose battles gracefully, and learn to guide the elderly to make the decisions that you know that they have to make.

Special Exits is presented as a true story for which all the names have been changed. The daughter taking care of her father and stepmother over the course of four years makes some mistakes and only slowly learns what she can and cannot accomplish. We can all hope never to be so challenged as the daughter, but we should probably all be ready to step up to do what we have to do. Reading Special Exits beforehand may help.

Farmer, Joyce. Special Exits: A Graphic Memoir. Fantagraphics Books, 2010. 200p. ISBN 9781606993811.

21: The Story of Roberto Clemente: A Graphic Novel by Wilfred Santiago

I wanted to like 21: The Story of Roberto Clemente: A Graphic Novel by Wilfred Santiago, but I wanted a fuller biography of the Hall of Fame baseball player. The art work effectively evokes the poverty of Puerto Rico and the grit of industrial Pittsburgh, and I think Santiago succeeds in dramatizing the big games, but 21 is just highlights from the great Pirate outfielder's life with lots of gaps. Turn a page, and years have passed without explanation. Knowing baseball history, I am able to fill in the gaps, but I can't imagine a young reader can.

21 is still an attractive introduction to learning about baseball of the 1950s to 1970s. I hope it encourages young readers to probe further. A more complete profile of the Pirate can be found in Clemente: The Passion and Grace of Baseball's Last Hero by David Maraniss. Dismiss the "last hero" idea though as there have been many worthy players after Clemente.

Santiago, Wilfred. 21: The Story of Roberto Clemente: A Graphic Novel. Fantagraphic Books, 2011. ISBN 9781560978923.

Feynman by Jim Ottaviani and Leland Myrick

Graphic novelist Jim Ottaviani has taken on big topics before, including the early history of paleontology, the development of the atomic bomb, and the space race. Now he has turned his attention to celebrated physicist Richard Feynman (1918-1988), who never fit the mold of serious scientist. Feynman was brilliant and even won the 1965 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work in quantum electrodynamics, but he also was a mischievous, unruly character who tested the patience of mentors, employers, and national security agencies. One of his hobbies was safecracking. No secret could be kept from Feynman.

In this graphic novel biography Feynman, Ottaviani and his artist friends Leland Myrick and Hilary Sycamore take a traditional narrative path. They start with a scene from Feynman's adult career and then step back to Feynman's childhood to tell a mostly youth to death story. They throw in a few flashbacks and flash-aheads, but readers mostly find an understandable and entertaining chronological account. Readers do not have to understand complicated scientific theory to read Feynman. Some readers may want to skip the lengthy explanation of quantum electrodynamics. Overall, the authors focus as much on Feynman the person as Feynman the scientist.

Of course, Feynman's long and varied career is hard to fit into only 262 pages. I would have liked a few more clarifying panels in some of the stories. If I had not already read about Feynman, I would certainly want to read more. Offer Feynman as an introduction or supplement and have Feynman's own books Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!, What Do YOU Care What Other People Think?, and The Meaning of It All ready for the curious.

Ottaviani, Jim and Leland Myrick. Feynman. First Second, 2011. 262p. ISBN 9781596432598.

Burma Chronicles by Guy DeLisle

If you are an artist and you are attached to a mission of Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) in a Third World nation for over a year, how would you choose to tell your story? Cartoonist/animator Guy DeLisle chose to write and illustrate a graphic novel titled Burma Chronicles. In six panels to a page, he recounts his time in Myanmar taking care of his infant son while his physician wife Nadege went on medical missions out of the capital Yangon (formerly called Rangoon) into regions where rebels were trying to overthrow the dictatorship. Left in Yangon with his son and a housekeeper, Guy wandered the streets, made new friends, and tried to make sense of the Burmese culture. It was easy to be accepted as long as he had his child. Without him, he was little noticed.

Yangon proved to be a city in transition with big department stores and beggars on the streets, fast computers from Japan but unreliable electricity, many friendly people and ever-present uniformed military carrying weapons. Dogs nipped at Guy's heals as he rode his bike through the streets at night, coming home from another party at an embassy or headquarters of an NGO. He always hoped to find the air condition working in the little house that his family rented. The hot, humid night were almost unbearable for a Canadian.

Readers follow Guy everywhere he goes - famous temples, the Australian Club (where Guy goes swimming in the rain), and mansions where expatriates meet for play groups. They even gets to tag along on a couple of MSF missions to villages where regular medical care is nonexistent. Burma Chronicles is quirky, surprising, fascinating journey that you can find or order through your public library.

DeLisle, Guy. Burma Chronicles. Drawn and Quarterly, 2008. ISBN 9781897299500.

The Influencing Machine: Brooke Gladstone on the Media by Brooke Gladstone

Many people have low opinions about media and the reporters and commentators that they read, hear, and see. That's actually not a new phenomena, according to NPR's Brooke Gladstone. Regard for media moves in cycles. In her new nonfiction graphic novel, The Influencing Machine: Brooke Gladstone on the Media, she recounts how the bearers of bad news have often been singled out for vilification throughout history. Ironically, she also shows how the public has continued to harken to the news, no matter what the era, technology, or message. We want to know what is happening and how it will effect us, though we may choose to disregard news and analysis that does not fit our political or philosophical views. The global digital age has made our contradictions more glaring and possibly more dangerous.

Gladstone includes many topics and trends specifically about media in The Influencing Machine, but in a sense her book is really about everything from the workings of the brain to our way of life. The back cover says that she is "visionary and opinionated," which I think she would accept readily. She discusses the longing for fair and unbiased reporting, but she holds that because reporters and media people are just people like everyone else, they can not be totally disinterested in the news they broadcast. Reporters at the war front are in the protection of the military; White House reporters need access to the White House; advertising revenue pays for the reporting of all news, including news of business and commerce; and most reporters do sympathize with their own countries and governments. No one is truly disinterested. Also, being fair does not mean the media has to repeat opinions from the uninformed equally with opinions from experts. For example, a scientist knows more about science than a politician.

Illustrated by Josh Neufeld and looking like a comic book, The Influencing Machine is entertaining and difficult to set aside. It will probably make some people on both ends of the political spectrum uncomfortable. Gladstone ends with eight double columned pages of source notes supporting her arguments.

Gladstone, Brooke. The Influencing Machine: Brooke Gladstone on the Media. W. W. Norton, 2011. ISBN 9780393077797.

The Photographer: Into War-Torn Afghanistan With Doctors Without Borders by Emmanuel Guibert

Back in 1986, the U.S. public was not really paying much attention to Afghanistan. We had already boycotted the 1980 Moscow Olympics, and it had been as long since CBS news anchor Dan Rather had reported from the front where the Afghani Mujahideen were fighting Soviet soldiers. The valleys of Afghanistan were remote, mostly unknown in the West, and very dangerous. Among the few outsiders deep in the country were CIA spies, intrepid reporters, and the French volunteers of Medecins Sans Frontieres, known to the English-speaking world as Doctors Without Borders. Wanting the world to see the desperate need for humanitarian assistance, Medecins Sans Frontieres hired a young photographer, Didier Lefevre, to accompany a mission to Zaragandara in the Valley of Yaftal, in the northeast region of Afghanistan, near Tajikistan. It took more than a month to travel by donkey caravan from Peshawar in Pakistan through many mountain passes, many over 1600 feet. Lefevre took photos all the way.

In 2003, French graphic artist Emmanuel Guibert, his friend Lefevre, and colorist Frederic Lemercier published the first of three installments of Le Photographe, which combine Lefevre's original photographs with Guibert's drawings to tell of Lefevre's nearly-fatal adventure, a story that he had told only to his closest friends for years. It was not a story that he wanted shared as long as he intended to return to Afghanistan, which he often did before September 11, 2001. The English translation The Photographer: Into War-Torn Afghanistan With Doctors Without Borders was published to critical acclaim in 2009.

Now in 2011, after American and other NATO troops have spent nearly ten years in Afghanistan with little prospect of beating Taliban and Al-Qaeda forces, The Photographer is very relevant. Not much other the names of the foreign forces has really changed in the situation. In the book, Lefevre is almost naive in his outlook, committing himself to months of hardship for the sake of his profession. The poverty, prejudice, injustice, and sheer danger of the Afghani countryside only become apparent to him after he passes a point of no return. Through the pages of The Photographer, readers learn as Lefevre learns.

The drawings are easier to comprehend than the photos in some cases. They give the photos context. The photos give the book impact. It is a particularly effective presentation that should move many readers.

Guibert, Emmanuel. The Photographer: Into War-Torn Afghanistan With Doctors Without Borders. First Second, 2009. ISBN 9781596433755.

Satchel Paige: Striking Out Jim Crow by James Sturm and Rich Tommaso

Legendary Negro League baseball player Satchel Paige was born about one hundred years ago. No one is exactly sure when because the state of Alabama was not really concerned with keeping accurate records of African Americans at the time. It was the era of Jim Crow laws, and Paige had few options in life other than picking cotton or playing baseball. Neither offered an easy life, but baseball payed the few players who could withstand the rigors of barnstorming better than working in the cotton fields. Among the tough players, Paige, with a smoking fastball and wicked curve, excelled.

In the graphic novel Satchel Paige: Striking Out Jim Crow, author-illustrators James Sturm and Rich Tommaso, who are affiliated with The Center for Cartoon Studies in Vermont, recreated pre-civil rights Alabama with its share-cropper shacks, dusty roads, smoky trains, and segregated baseball fields, where whites got the shaded grandstands and blacks stood in the sun beyond the outfield. Only on the field of play did the black players get any recognition. Even the whites knew and repeated stories about Satchel Paige's unbelievable talent. Some over-confident whites wanting to prove racial superiority even arranged to play baseball against him and his teams.

Satchel Paige: Striking Out Jim Crow is a fictional work, not a biography. The authors have taken some familiar stories about Paige and created a visit by him to fictional Tuckwilla, Alabama, the home of men whose dreams have failed. One is a young black man who made the Negro Leagues only to suffer an early career ending injury. He has to work in the fields belonging to the Jennings twins, brothers who played two years of minor league baseball before being released by the St. Louis Cardinals. Having formed a strong local team, the brothers challenge Paige's team to a game.

Aiming to sell their graphic novel to an educational market, Sturm and Tommaso included four pages of historical notes to explain their illustrations and story. While I am obviously beyond elementary and secondary school, I enjoyed the well-written, quick read. The proud, impudent Satchel Paige is a great character who will appeal to anyone who likes to see bullies brought to justice. For school and public libraries, it would also make a good gift to young readers.

James Sturm and Rich Tommaso. Satchel Paige: Striking Out Jim Crow. Hyperion, 2007. ISBN 9780786839001.

Johnny Cash: I See a Darkness by Reinhard Kleist

Johnny Cash's story has been told before in books, movies, and documentaries. Now it is the subject of a gritty graphic novel, Johnny Cash: I See a Darkness by Reinhard Kleist, which focuses on the singer's life up to his direction changing 1968 concert in Folsom Prison. Through black and white panels, the author/illustrator recounts the death of Cash's brother Roy, his military service, unhappy marriage, and early time at Sun Records, leading up to his addiction to drugs and arrest for smuggling. He also inserts panels on the life of Glen Sherley, an Folsom inmate who wrote a song that Cash sang at the daring concert. Kleist makes no apologies for Cash, who abandoned his family, broke the law, and disappointed many concert goers with bad performances. Feeling that his songs spoke to and for them, however, many of his fans stuck with him. This frank but sympathetic graphic novel is 223 pages and may take several hours to read.

For a deeper look at Cash's life as a whole, try Johnny Cash: The Biography by Michael Streissguth, who has also written Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison: The Making of a Masterpiece.

Kleist, Reinhard. Johnny Cash: I See a Darkness. Abrams ComicArts, c2009. ISBN 9780810984639.

Suspended in Language: Niels Bohr's Life, Discoveries, and the Century He Shaped by Jim Ottaviani

I've read another illustrated science biography by Jim Ottaviani, and again I've enjoyed the graphical telling of a complicated story. This time the subject is physicist Niels Bohr who won a Nobel Prize in 1922 for describing the structure of the atom. Ottaviani points out in Suspended in Language: Niels Bohr's Life, Discoveries, and the Century He Shaped that scientists later proved Bohr's picture of the atom was incomplete; his work was at least good enough to get other scientists, many of whom he fostered, to get it right later. In fact, his son Aage won a Nobel Prize for revising the anatomy and physics of his father's atom. Bohr's discoveries led to developing atomic energy and atomic weapons, neither of which initially seemed feasible to him.

Despite being like a comic book, Suspended in Language is not an easy read. There are many mathematical formulas and unfamiliar scientific terms, which may require the reader to pull out reference books. The reader can enjoy the story in ignorance of the science, but it is worthwhile making an effort to grasp the points about which Bohr and Einstein were in disagreement.

The most gripping part of the story involves Bohr's remaining in Denmark long into World War II before escaping to the West. German soldiers kept him under house arrest in his home for years, allowing other scientists to come visit. What he said to a German colleague who was working on bomb development is not known and still debated. He arrived in the West too late to be of help to either the British or American atomic bomb programs. He urged President Roosevelt to share all of the Manhattan project discoveries with other nations to prevent an arms race.

Ottaviana portrays Bohr as a congenial scientist, always ready to collaborate, who involved his wife in his correspondences, and who drew his son Aage into his experiments. He had a sense of humor, being a founder of the Journal of Jocular Physics, a short-lived publication that apparently brought much laughter to scientists working to solve the riddles of quantum physics. Suspended in Language is a good introduction to a major twentieth century scientist and the world he helped create.

Ottaviani, Jim. Suspended in Language: Niels Bohr's Life, Discoveries, and the Century He Shaped. G. T. Labs, 2004. ISBN 0966010655

Bone Sharps, Cowboys, And Thunder Lizards: A Tale of Edward Drinker Cope, Othniel Charles Marsh, and the Gilded Age of Paleontology

Today we think of paleontology as one of the fun sciences. Nearly everyone seems to like a good dinosaur discovery with its lively debate about what the bones reveal. We enjoy stories about the travels and work of modern dino-hounds, such as Paul Sereno, Sue Hendrickson, and Xu Xing. Paleontologists were not always held in such high regard. In fact, in the late nineteenth century, they were ridiculed for their crazy theories and their bitter rivalries. Jim Ottaviani and the artists of Big Time Attic tell about early paleontologists, who perhaps deserved some of their bad press, in the graphic novel Bone Sharps, Cowboys, And Thunder Lizards: A Tale of Edward Drinker Cope, Othniel Charles Marsh, and the Gilded Age of Paleontology.

The publisher of Bone Sharps, Cowboys, And Thunder Lizards labels it as "science/history," but Ottaviani says clearly in his afterward that it is historical fiction. Most of the characters are or were based on real people, but the author took artistic license with the story in the way movie producers do when they present true stories. Time lines are rearranged, quotes are given to other speakers, and people who never actually met meet. Ottaviani adds eleven pages of notes to let readers know what was fact and what was fiction in his story. It is a pretty clever way to teach history.

Being a graphic novel, you might think it could be read very quickly, but there is so much content in the pictures themselves. A reader must take some time looking at facial expressions and what is going on in the background. Not all of it made sense to me. I was grateful for the notes at the end.

The publisher G. T. Labs has a series of science history graphic novels. I am placing some more reserves to see what else I might learn.

Ottaviani, Jim and Big Time Attic. Bone Sharps, Cowboys, And Thunder Lizards: A Tale of Edward Drinker Cope, Othniel Charles Marsh, and the Gilded Age of Paleontology. G. T. Labs, 2005. ISBN 0966010663

Ronald Reagan: A Graphic Biography by Andrew Helfer with Art by Steve Buccellato and Joe Staton

Ronald Reagan seems to be a perfect subject for a graphic novel biography, especially one in black-and-white. As an actor, he often played rather comic book figures, and his world view was rather uncomplicated. There were good guys and bad guys. Ronald Reagan: A Graphic Biography by Andrew Helfer with art by Steve Buccellato and Joe Staton reflects these ideas and presents the former president as simply a man who sought fame.

The statement on the back cover claims that Reagan would have enjoyed this telling of his life. He might have, as he seemed to be a person with a sense of humor. He was rarely upset. Besides, for an actor there is no such thing as bad publicity. His fans and the people who worship his legacy may not be so please. I notice that the book is not for sale at the website for the shop at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Foundation.

The book starts in a reverential tone as it tells about Reagan's death and funeral. Then it shows his birth and childhood, college days, early days in radio, and arrival in Hollywood in a mostly positive tone. Only when the story reaches his involvement in the actors union and politics does he become flawed. As depicted by Helfer, Buccellato, and Staton, Reagan seems to have no qualms about the political positions he takes. In his mind he is always right and there is no doubt about it. Winning elections and pushing his agenda become more important than truth and fairness. When Reagan refuses to let his speech writer correct an easily-verifiable factual error in a State of the Union speech because he insists it makes a better story than the truth, the reader knows that Reagan's act has become more important than actual service to the nation.

The final pages seem reverential again. The effect is like tacking a happy ending to a tragic movie.

With so many of the recent books portraying him positively, Ronald Reagan: A Graphic Novel can be seen as a needed balancing viewpoint. Being somewhat sketchy, it can only serve as an introduction, but it does suggest further reading in the back pages. It can go either in the graphic novel section or biography section in public libraries.

Helfer, Andrew. Ronald Reagan: A Graphic Biography. Hill and Wang, 2007. ISBN 9780809095070

American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang

Some books are remarkable not for what they say but for how they say it. Such is the case with American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang, a graphic novel about the son of immigrants trying to assimilate in an American school. The message of the book can be reduced to "Be yourself," which is a common theme in literature, but there is much more to the book.

American Born Chinese at first appears to be three stories in rotation - a Chinese folk tale about the Monkey King, the story of Jin Wang moving into a new school, and the story of Danny being embarrassed by his very stereotypical Chinese cousin. The Monkey King is angered by the prejudice of the Chinese deities, who will not allow him to join the party in heaven because he does not wear shoes. He transforms himself into a revengeful warrior who attacks the hosts of heaven, for which he is punished by being locked under a mountain of rubble until he learns his lesson.

Jin Wang is the central character. He tries to transform himself into an average American teen with increasing embarrassing results. The story of Danny is mostly in the background until the end when he confronts his cousin. At that point, all the stories come together cleverly.

American Born Chinese is aimed at teens, especially boys. It is at times violent in a comic book way, but it is a serious treatment of an ethnic experience that should be considered for library collections.

Yang, Gene Luen. American Born Chinese. New York: First Second, 2006. ISBN 1596431520