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Module 13: Ghosts by Raina Telgemeier


Genre: Graphic Novel

Book Summary:
Catrina's younger sister is quite ill, and her family moves to a new town in an attempt to improve living conditions.  The town is full of spirits, and Cat, ever protective of her sister, wants nothing to do with them.  Cat must face her fears of death and losing those close to her.  When she opens herself to the possibilities that spirits are another phase of being, the present and the future and all the change that comes with them become easier to accept.

Telgemeier, R. (2016). Ghosts. NY: Graphix.

 Impressions:
Raina Telgemeier is an amazing storyteller, and her balance of words and images bring her stories to life.  Her vibrant color palette lends itself beautifully to the culture of the characters she shares in Ghosts.  With such a title, one might expect to be confronted with horror, and yet Telgemeier portrays a side of death and the spiritual that is comforting to those who have lost a loved one.

While Catrina is not the one in the story who is sick, Telegemeier shows how much pain siblings bear when they have a brother or sister with a severe illness.  She must move to a new town and make new friends, all with the pressure to keep her sister safe, but also to not be defined by her.  The fact that Telgemeier can bring subtle moments of humor to these struggles highlights why preteens and young adults are so drawn to her work.  There is an authentic truth to the story that all readers can relate to, whether or not they have someone near them who has passed.  Ghosts helps readers to deal with fears of losing someone, but also with the fear of what happens to oneself after dying, and the family and friends we leave behind.

This was my first real experience reading a graphic novel, but it definitely will not be my last.  There are feelings that cannot be captured and expressed in the same way across any other medium.  Telgemeier uses this genre to broach a topic that can often be seen as taboo in our society, and she does it with dignity and grace.

Professional Review:
Catrina narrates the story of her mixed-race (Latino/white) family’s move from Southern California to Bahía de la Luna on the Northern California coast.
Dad has a new job, but it’s little sister Maya’s lungs that motivate the move: she has had cystic fibrosis since birth—a degenerative breathing condition. Despite her health, Maya loves adventure, even if her lungs suffer for it and even when Cat must follow to keep her safe. When Carlos, a tall, brown, and handsome teen Ghost Tour guide introduces the sisters to the Bahía ghosts—most of whom were Spanish-speaking Mexicans when alive—they fascinate Maya and she them, but the terrified Cat wants only to get herself and Maya back to safety. When the ghost adventure leads to Maya’s hospitalization, Cat blames both herself and Carlos, which makes seeing him at school difficult. As Cat awakens to the meaning of Halloween and Day of the Dead in this strange new home, she comes to understand the importance of the ghosts both to herself and to Maya. Telgemeier neatly balances enough issues that a lesser artist would split them into separate stories and delivers as much delight textually as visually. The backmatter includes snippets from Telgemeier’s sketchbook and a photo of her in Día makeup.
Telgemeier’s bold colors, superior visual storytelling, and unusual subject matter will keep readers emotionally engaged and unable to put down this compelling tale. (Graphic fiction. 8-12)
Kirkus (2016). [Review for the book Ghosts].   Retrieved from https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/raina-telgemeier/ghosts-telgemeier/

Library Uses:
My own campus has a number of students who are Mexican American and who celebrate Dia de Los Muertos.  However, there are many students who do not.  While the book is not specifically about the holiday, it is about a cultural view toward death as something less scary and ominous than we might view it in our mainstream American society.  The graphic novels in our library hardly stay on the shelf, so using this story to help students connect to the culture of others is a great opportunity.  As students have multiple traditions, an activity that would be fun would be to have students create a comic or graphic novel about a tradition their own family celebrates and share it with everyone.

 Readalikes:
Anya's Ghost by Vera Brosgol
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
Ghostopolis by Doug TenNapel

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