Goldfisch - or why manga needs to be in the classroom

Description: from the publisher

Say hi to Morrey Gibbs! A fisher-boy in a flooded world overrun with dangerous mutated animals known as "anomals," he's got his own problems to worry about. Namely, how everything he touches turns to gold! Sure it sounds great, but gold underpants aren't exactly stylish -- or comfortable!

Together with his otter buddy and new inventor friend Shelly, Morrey's on a quest to rid himself of his blessing-turned-curse and undo the tragedy it caused. That is of course, if they can dodge the treasure-hungry bounty hunters... 

My thoughts:

Back when our island used to have chain bookstores, teens would always be around the manga section just standing there reading. This is what real reading looks like to me. How does that translate to the English classroom? Unfortunately, it does not. Too few middle and secondary English teachers see manga as real reading for real readers. Even teachers who do regular SSR in their classrooms (sustained silent reading) do not include manga series in their classroom libraries. That's a shame.

Here is a non secret that we do not seem to believe fully: readers get better at reading by. . .reading. So is it more important to dictate what they cannot read or is it more important to let students read what they enjoy reading, regardless of our thoughts on the "literary value" of that reading? 

This first volume of Goldfisch is typical of most Tokyo Pop manga. At a little over 200 pages, this is not a lightweight book. It follows the typical plot pyramid and because it is made to be a series, it ends at a point where there is a hanging conflict that will bring readers into the next volume. Increasing the volume of reading also helps readers learn new words (Allen), so the more students read, the more they will learn. 

Finally, when working with middle and secondary students who struggle, I found that they do not visualize while reading. The manga, which holds tone, mood, even irony in the context of the words combined with the graphics and the shape/size of the block helps with visualization of text. 

As teachers, it is up to us to up our manga game and bring more graphic novels and manga into our classroom libraries. Just read them first as publishers like Tokyo Pop may look like they are created for YA and tween readers because of the cuteness factor but some series are for older students.