{"id":21469,"date":"2017-05-12T08:00:56","date_gmt":"2017-05-12T12:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=21469"},"modified":"2017-05-12T08:00:56","modified_gmt":"2017-05-12T12:00:56","slug":"minding-the-gaps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/?p=21469","title":{"rendered":"Minding the Gaps!"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s Reading Without Walls week at ShelfTalker! As my colleagues have been writing all week, we collectively decided to take Gene Luen Yang\u2019s Reading Without Walls challenge<\/a> and blog about it. I’m so glad we did because I am a huge fan of this initiative. It provides a welcome push to hit pause and look past the books on our (always too long) must-read lists to try to see which ones aren’t there, and maybe ask ourselves why.
\nLike all booksellers, I try to be an omnivorous reader, with various books stashed in my purse, diaper bag, and glove compartment at any given time. While I love mixing up genres, themes, characters, and voices, I have reading gaps just like anyone else. I admit that I don\u2019t read enough sports stories, and that romance-heavy novels aren\u2019t always my first choice. But I ultimately decided to focus on the graphic novel. And that\u2019s for very selfish reasons. Honestly, I really\u00a0want <\/em>to understand the world of graphic novels better than I do.
\n
\nDon\u2019t get me wrong. I love looking through graphic novels when they come in, and I recommend them all the time. But I rarely read them all the way through. I appreciate\u00a0the way the genre brings together words and art into one cohesive, immersive storytelling experience, but I’ve never quite trained my brain to smoothly process the boxes in the right order. I can almost feel my gray matter resisting the process as I go. Really, though? I think those reading muscles just need a little more exercise to push them outside their lazy comfort zone and get them in shape.<\/p>\n

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!<\/strong><\/h1>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The proposition is threefold, so I decided to choose three books that all brought something different to the table and were published by houses outside the big five or six.
\nCynthia Compton got me started, recommending Afar <\/em>by Leila del Duca and Kit Seaton. She pitched it as YA graphic sci-fi dystopian starring\u00a0a protagonist with killer earrings. I love a good earring, and I dove right into Boetema\u2019s story. Seemingly about a dangerous desert crossing undertaken with her younger brother, Boetema’s journey slowly morphs into a planet-hopping, astral projection adventure that I completely didn\u2019t see coming. Set in a futuristic world\u00a0heavily\u00a0influenced by pre-colonial Africa, the illustrations of Boetema\u2019s home reality are truly striking, but the really cool thing is that with each planet jump, the art style and color palette transform as well, creating a kaleidoscopic cosmic tour that I really enjoyed.
\nNext up? Lowriders to the Center of the Earth <\/em>by Cathy Camper and Ra\u00fal the Third. I chose this partly because I am not drawn to car culture. Honestly, I barely know the difference between a lowrider and a monster truck. But I love a good pun. (\u201cYou\u2019ve gato<\/em> be kitten<\/em> me!”) And there\u2019s zany adventure galore between giant corn mazes, hot magma, and Mictlantechhtli, Lord of the Underworld \u2014 who, FYI, does not like\u00a0the name Miclanty-tanty-cootybooty, which is an excellent safety tip unless you want to end up in a lucha libre throwdown. Oh, and you\u2019ve got to love a big orange gato with a few tricks up its sleeve.
\nSpeaking of tricks, I wanted to find a book that qualified as exploring a new topic (aside from learning the definition of a lowrider), so I landed on Trickster: Native American Tales\u00a0<\/em>in which 21 Native American writers tell traditional trickster tales. I don\u2019t know as much about First Nations cultures as I would like to, and I really enjoyed these mischievous tales that range from silly to pensive to tragic to sly. Brought to life by 21 different artists, the best thing was the sheer multitude of trickster types in here\u2014probably a reflection of all the different tribal traditions that created them. Some tricksters get too tricksy for their own good, some get their just desserts, and some get away with it all, living to trick another day.
\nI have to say that after my adventure into the graphic universe, I can feel myself getting into the rhythm, and I want to keep going. Next up? 5 Worlds: The Sand Warrior<\/em>. Of course there\u2019s no end to a challenge like this. It simply gives us a little push to get moving. Tag, you\u2019re it!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Going graphic with the Reading Without Walls Challenge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21469","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21469","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21469\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blogs.publishersweekly.com\/blogs\/shelftalker\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}