Yesterday I talked about the School Library Journal's recommendation of Del Rey’s Me and the Devil Blues, and today the SLJ popped up again: this time, they got a few librarians to talk about what kids are checking out from the shelves, and a few manga appeared…though I wonder how much the librarians really know about these titles. For example, one librarian from said:
Manga is still a big draw, especially Nobuhiro Watsuki’s “Shojo Beat” and Kazune Kawahara’s High School Debut (2008, both Viz Media).
She’s probably talking about the Shojo Beat magazine, which may have featured Rurouni Kenshin and Buso Renkin's creator, Nobuhiro Watsuki, in the past...I guess. And then there’s this librarian:
Manga mania has not escaped us, with Maki Murakami’s “Gravitation” (Tokyopop) pulling in new readers every week.
Gravitation
Either the library doesn’t know much about Gravitation, or it’s a very cool school—it’s hard to imagine that many schools would want to potentially brush up against angry parents by carrying a yaoi manga, even if it’s not hardcore.
I'm guessing they don't know much about Gravitation. Plus they probably just figured older teen works for most teens, and that's the age group they want.
Probably, but right now as I know in terms of librarians.... manga or graphic novels is a huge draw for numbers. Some libraries if they are conservative, then they would not even stock it. But I am sure that the librarians do know of what Gravitation is, since they get review copies before they even approve of it to be on the shelves. Also I would imagine that often they only stock parts of the series and you'll find it hard press for the budget to stock an entire series.. such as Kenshin...
on Dec. 4, 2008