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Librarians Recommend Love*Com, Spirited Away Films (Updated)

The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), a division of the American Library Association, has named Kitaji Ishikawa's live-action Love*Com the Movie and Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away fantasy anime film among its "2009 Fabulous Films for Young Adults" this week. The Love*Com film adapts Aya Nakahara's romantic comedy manga of the same name. This list, like the other lists of recommendations that YALSA drafts, is presented annually at the ALA Midwinter Meeting. The theme of this year's list of 16 films is "Coming of Age Around the World." YALSA composes the list to identify "a body of films relating to a theme that will appeal to young adults ages 12-18."

YALSA has also recommended four manga-related nonfiction books in its list of "2009 Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers." This lists offers suggestions for "books that teens, ages 12-18, will pick up on their own and read for pleasure; it is geared to the teenager who, for whatever reason, does not like to read." The four are Comickers Magazine's Comickers Art 2: Create Amazing Manga Characters (published by HarperCollins), Yishan Li's 500 Manga Creatures (HarperCollins), The Manga University Culinary Institute and Hattori, Chihiro's The Manga Cookbook (Japanime), and Aimee Major Steinberger's Japan Ai: A Tall Girl's Adventures in Japan (Go! Comi). Steinberger's book was among YALSA's "Top Ten Great Graphic Novels for Teens" for this year as well.

Images © 2006 Love*Com Production Committee
© 2001 Nibariki • TGNDDTM

Update: Corrected YALSA's transposition of Aimee Major Steinberger's name. Thanks, Sydney2K.