Fish Girl by David Wiesner & Donna Jo Napoli

Fish Girl is an incredible collaboration between Donna Jo Napoli and David Wiesner. A modern-day fairy tale told as a graphic novel, Wiesner’s illustrations show the reader a house that is also an aquarium, known as “Ocean Wonders,” and inside Ocean Wonders lives Fish Girl. Napoli’s words accompany the illustrations, giving the glimpse into the mind of Fish Girl, who cannot talk. There is a room, perfectly preserved underwater, and visitors to the aquarium try to catch a glimpse of the elusive mermaid while “Neptune” swings a trident that controls the waves, calling out:

“The Fish Girl! She is the mystery that lives in that lovely room. Look at her beautiful dresses and jewelry--all underwater! The Fish Girl! What is she? Is she fish or is she girl? You are fortunate to be here, for she is the last of her kind, and she can be seen only at Ocean Wonders!”

This is the only world that Fish Girl has ever known. Her only friends are the other fish in the aquarium, and an orange octopus. If, during visiting hours, she does a good job swimming around so that she’s not seen, but gives curious visitors a glimpse of her tail, Neptune rewards her with a story of how he rescued her when she was a baby. When Livia, a girl about the same age as Fish Girl goes to the restricted area of the aquarium, she actually sees the mermaid. Fish Girl is also curious about the human girl, and Livia gives her a name: Mira. Mira and Livia become friends, and Mira starts to see Neptune for who he really is: a fraud. How can she escape her house tank, when Neptune controls the air filter, the water, and her food? Mira starts to yearn for real friendships after meeting Livia, and begins to take her destiny in her own hands.

Female Graphic Novelists on the Rise

Cherie Priest

With the explosion of illustrated books in general, and graphic novels in particular, I Am Princess X by Cherie Priest, illustrated by Kali Ciesemier, demonstrates even more innovation with this melding of prose and comics.

The prose portion describes a friendship between two girls who invent a comics character, Princess X, at recess one day and who become inseparable--until the day one of them disappears. The comics featuring Princess X provide the clues to the missing collaborator's whereabouts. The innovation here is the book's hybrid aspect. Like Brian Selznick's work in The Invention of Hugo Cabret and Wonderstruck, readers must immerse themselves in the visual narrative as well as the prose narrative in order to get the full story.

I Am Princess X--a story bout a strong female character, invented by two fictional female friends, and brought to life by a female writer and female graphic artist--is a kind of microcosm of what's happening in graphic novels overall right now. On Tuesday, I got to be part of a panel hosted by the Children's Book Council called "The Rise of Illustrated Books," and Gina Gagliano, associate marketing & publicity manager at First Second Books (an imprint dedicated to graphic novels), had just returned from San Diego Comic Con, where the 2015 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards were announced. Gina pointed out that, for the first time, women were beginning to infiltrate the awards.

Kali Ciesemier

Best Writer/Artist went to Raina Telgemeier for Sisters (Graphix/Scholastic); Best Publication for Kids (ages 8-12) was awarded to El Deafo by Cece Bell (Amulet/Abrams); and the top award, for Best Graphic Album–New, went to This One Summer by cousins Mariko and Jillian Tamaki (published by First Second).

It's worth pointing out that El Deafo also received a 2015 Newbery Honor (the first graphic novel to do so), and This One Summer was named both a 2015 Caldecott Honor (the first graphic novel to do so) and a 2015 Printz Award. Graphic novels are on the rise, women creators of graphic novels are on the rise, and graphic novels have earned their well-deserved accolades in the literary establishment.

Emotional Honesty

Liu and Martinez with their daughter

Wife-and-husband team Na Liu and Andrés Vera Martínez reveal remarkable emotional honesty in Little White Duck. Because young Na, called Da Qin (or "Big Piano") by her family, is so young and unguarded, her expressions are raw.

When Chairman Mao dies, she cries in response to her parents' sorrow rather than because of any attachment she herself felt to China's famous leader. Yet through Martinez's illustrations, readers who know nothing of Mao's impact on China can see what an influence Mao had by the banners, the murals, and Da Qin's recounting of how Mao's policies helped her working-class mother get the surgeries she needed to recover from paralysis caused by polio.

Da Qin's youth ensures that there's no political slant here. We see through her eyes the poverty in her grandmother's rural town; we hear from her mother about times when there was literally nothing to eat. It's a portrayal of a people ravaged by poverty, even though Da Qin's family makes enough to feed and house them comfortably. We also see how content Da Qin is in her family life, how close she is to her parents and her sister. She thinks it's perfectly normal to brush your teeth with an outdoor spigot.

Da Qin's mother tells the girls how difficult life can be for many people, but Da Qin sees this for herself when she goes with her father to visit his mother in a rural area. The children have never felt anything as soft as the little white velvet duck sewn onto Da Qin's coat. She wants to be generous even as she sees that they are soiling her white patch.

A mural of Chairman Mao in Little White Duck

It's an instinctive act of kindness. Of her childhood home, Na Liu explained in an interview with me that she was part of a “transitional generation—a generation caught in between one way of life and another, between the old and the new.”

A Sense of Wonder

Zig and Wikki in Something Ate My Homework by Nadja Spiegelman, illustrated by Trade Loeffler, perfectly captures the sense of wonder that a close encounter with the natural world can inspire in us—and especially in children. Every morning I take my dog, Molly, for a long walk (unless there’s a downpour or a blizzard). Part of the week we spend in the city, and part of the week in New Jersey, where my husband and I share a cabin in the foothills of the Appalachian Trail. One spring morning last year, Molly and I came upon a bear cub, not 10 yards away. My first thought was, “This creature is magnificent!” The bear was on all fours, and we were slightly behind it (thankfully) so I couldn’t see how large it was, tip to toe, but I thought, “Wow!” It was the first time I’d ever seen a bear in the wild, and there really are no words to describe being in the presence of such a powerful, beautiful beast.

My next thought was, “Where is its mother?” Because of course I’d read many times, in both fact and fiction (Jean Craighead George’s novels leap to mind), how protective mother bears are of their cubs. Molly had not yet spied the bear (whew!), and did not bark. There was a small stone wall on the left side of the street, where the bear was, and I began to steer us to that side, so we’d be obscured from the bear’s view. He (or she) continued across the street seemingly oblivious to our presence and went on through the trees and onto a neighbor’s property. I began singing—as a camper in my Girl Scout days, I was told to make noise in bear territory so the animals wouldn’t be startled. We made it home with no further bear spotting.

A few days later, I was in the post office, and bumped into a neighbor couple (not the ones whose property the bear had entered). The husband asked me if I’d seen a bear recently, and I told him about my encounter while walking Molly. “Oh, that’s not a cub,” said the wife. “He’s at least a year old and looking for territory to claim for his own.” That explained why there was no mother.

Clearly that experience has stayed with me, and I will likely never forget it. Bears are much larger than the fly, dragonfly, toad and raccoon that Zig and Wikki encounter, but every time we get an opportunity to observe another living thing up close, we get a chance to stop and reflect on what an amazing thing life is. To watch a dragonfly dip its lovely wings close to a pond’s surface or observe the concentration of a raccoon when it’s stalking its prey (or trying to get into a garbage can, as I witnessed many times growing up in Michigan) is to be reminded of the majesty in life’s small moments.

I can think of no better way to engender in children a sense of wonder and an appreciation of nature than through direct experience and careful observation. Children are quick to realize the commonalities between us and all living things, and to feel a sense of duty in preserving the world around them.