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School Library Journal Names Best Books in 2009
posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
The School Library Journal, a frequently referenced source of information for elementary, junior high, and high school librarians, released its Best Comics for Kids in 2009 list on Tuesday. The list was broken down into three categories: The Best Comics for Young Readers (ages 4-8), The Best Comics for Tweens (ages 9-12), and The Best Comics for Teens (ages 13-18). Nine books were chosen for each category.
In the Best Comics for Teens category, Daisuke Igarashi's Children of the Sea, Karuho Shiina's Kimi ni Todoke - From Me to You, Naoki Urasawa's Pluto: Urasawa x Tezuka, and James Patterson and Narae Lee's Maximum Ride: The Manga were among the nominations. Viz Media publishes Children of the Sea, Kimi ni Todoke, and Pluto in North America, while Yen Press publishes Maximum Ride.
In the Best Comics for Tweens category, Kenji Sonishi's Leave it to PET! The misadventures of a Recycled Super-Robot was the only manga to make the list. Viz Media holds the license and has now published three volumes of the manga.
In the Best Comics for Young Readers category, Machiko Fuji's and Tomomi Mizuno's The Big Adventures of Majoko and Shunshin Maeda's Ninja Baseball Kyuma! — both released in English by Udon's Kids line — were among the nominated. Also among the nominated were Hitoshi Shioya's Dinosaur Hour and Sayuri Tatsuyama's Happy Happy Clover, both released in English by Viz Media.
All of the award-winners were chosen by a committee composed of librarians, a blogger, and a comic professional.
The Journal also released its Best Adult Books for High School Students for 2009 list on December 1. Yoshihiro Tatsumi's autobiographical manga A Drifting Life was the only manga to make the list. The manga chronicles Tatsumi's life as a boy in postwar Japan and into his early 20s as he struggles to become a mangaka. The Singaporean newspaper Business Times reported on December 4 that a live-action film adaptation is in the works.
A committee of more than three dozen librarians worked with teens in public, school, and college libraries to review 250 books for a high school audience this year. It chose 18 books, 6 from three different categories: fiction, nonfiction and graphic novels.
Last year, the School Library Journal named Akira Hiramoto's Me and the Devil Blues one of the Best Adult Books for High School Students for 2008.
The Journal also published its list of the Best Books of 2009, however, no manga were chosen for that list.
Source: School Library Journal (link 2) via Examiner.com
