News
U.S. Librarians Rank Saturn Apartments in Teens' Top 10
posted on by Gia Manry
The American Library Association's Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) division has released its list of the top ten graphic novels for teens in 2011, which is culled from a longer list titled "Great Graphic Novels for Teens." One manga made the cut for the top ten this year: Hisae Iwaoka's Saturn Apartments volume 1 from Viz Media.
YALSA named 14 additional manga titles among its Great Graphic Novels for Teens — nine published by Viz Media, two by Vertical, and one each by Del Rey, Yen Press, and Digital Manga Publishing. These titles are:
- Cross Game graphic novel (GN) 1 - Mitsuru Adachi (Viz Media)
- Arisa GN 1 - Natsumi Ando (Del Rey)
- Library Wars: Love & War GN 1 - Kiiro Yumi and Hiro Arikawa (Viz Media)
- Maoh: Juvenile Remix GN 1 - Kōtarō Isaka and Megumi Osuga (Viz Media)
- Bokurano: Ours GN 1 - Mihiro Kitoh (Viz Media)
- Natsume's Book of Friends GN 1 - Yuki Midorikawa (Viz Media)
- Biomega GN 1 - Tsutomu Nihei (Viz Media)
- House of Five Leaves GN 1 - Natsume Ono (Viz Media)
- Not Simple GN 1 - Natsume Ono (Viz Media)
- Afterschool Charisma GN 1 - Kumiko Sukane (Viz Media)
- Itazura na Kiss GN 1 - Kaoru Tada (Digital Manga Publishing)
- 7 Billion Needles GN 1 - Nobuaki Tadano (Vertical)
- Black Butler GN 1 - Yana Toboso (Yen Press)
- Twin Spica GN 1 - Kou Yaginuma (Vertical)
The list also features Yun JiUn's Korean manhwa Time and Again!! volumes one and two from Yen Press.
These lists are presented annually at the ALA's Midwinter Meeting. Each book is recommended for ages 12-18 and meet the criteria of being "both good quality literature and appealing reading for teens."
Of the 55 fiction graphic novels listed this year, 14 (25.4%) originated in Japan. Last year's list included 19 Japanese recommendations of 53 total (35.8%), and its top ten list featured three manga titles (Ōoku, Children of the Sea, and Pluto). 2009's list offered 9 manga of 43 titles (20.9%) and three manga titles on the top ten list: Sand Chronicles, Real, and Uzumaki.
Source: ICv2
