So sorry for the late post…my internet had an attitude. So not Comcastic.

Anyway, I read Batwoman: Elegy by Greg Rucka. The first of the four part collection, titled Agiato, begins with Batwoman (aka Kate Kane) trying to discover the identity of the criminal organization, Religion of Crime’s, new leader. While, her interrogations prove to be fruitless in producing a name, she discovers that the organization’s High Madame will arrive in Gotham city the following night. Because she has taken on the responsibility of a being a nighttime vigilante, Kate finds herself enduring many sleepless nights. Her constant absence does not go unnoticed by her girlfriend, Anna, who accuses Kate of seeing another woman. (By the way, this Batwoman is a lesbian). Unaware of Kate’s true late-night activities, Anna breaks up with her, leaving a lonely Kate with nothing else to do but pay a visit to her father. From the exchange between Kate her father, Col. Jake Kane, we learn that he is aware of her role as Batwoman, serving as her answer to Batman’s Alfred. We also learn that Kate has encountered the Religion of Crime previously, when they attempted to kill by stabbing her in the heart. Kate thus has personal interest in pursuing the gang’s new High Madame, wanting to understand why they want her dead. Despite her father’s protests, Kate goes out that night to meet the new leader. She indeed finds the High Madame, the Lewis Carroll-quoting lunatic, Alice (yes, like the one who went to Wonderland, but creepier). Batwoman seizes Alice, taking her to an isolated location on the outskirts of Gotham, and ruthlessly interrogating her. Alice, however, refuses to answer any of Batwoman’s questions and slices her across the face with a blade hidden in her mouth. The blade turns out to be laced with a powerful poison, which leaves Batwoman dazed and as she stumbles into a forest. Alice and her henchmen pursue Batwoman, who is virtually helpless, but luckily the Colonel appears to come to his daughter’s aid. Alice, however, has several tricks up her sleeve, one of them being a werewolf, poised to attack--or so it seems. The werewolf surprisingly spares them, and begins to revert to his human form, a man Kate and her father recognize as Abbot. The next day, Kate’s father insists that she switch gears long enough to attend a formal event with her family. At the gala, she sees human Abbot once again, who tells her that he spared her because he is one the true believers of dark faith, and does not follow the Religion of Crime anymore. This Crime Bible of the dark faith has foretold that Batwoman must die in order for a New World to come about. He also explains that Alice seeks to rule over Gotham, and Kate realizes that in order to so, she will have to use a military-grade poisonous gas to do so. Alice kidnaps Kate’s father to obtain the poison, and while being held captive, he discovers her true identity as his other daughter, Kate’s twin who was assumed to be dead. Batwoman then locates Alice, and in a fight held in a military plane, pushes the villain out of the plane to her death. At this point in the book, we see pages of flashbacks from Kate’s history: the death of her mother and twin sister, her dismissal from the military because of her sexual orientation, and finally, why she chose to don the Batwoman mask.

Connection to YA Criteria: Although Kate Kane doesn’t exactly fit into the young adult category (I gathered that she‘s about 32), the few flashbacks to her history show a troubled young woman who struggles with many issues that are common to youths. Her dream of attending a military academy is short lived because she refuses to hide her sexual orientation. Likewise, young adults today often struggle with defining themselves, fearing rejection from others. Rather than having a classic, ultra-femme heroine, Rucka’s Batwoman represents as real person who struggles with identity issues, and learning how to avoid letting her past destroy her future.

Links: Here’s one of the millions of reviews I found, that includes several images from the book: http://www.wired.com/underwire/2010/06/batwoman-elegy/

This one’s an interesting “Batwoman Timeline” that goes into more detail about Kate Kane’s history: http://hellblazerraiser.blogspot.com/2010/06/batwoman-ii-kate-kane-...

Recommendation: Batwoman: Elegy takes a familiar heroine and reinvents her as a modern, oft-misunderstood vigilante. When her mask is off, Kate struggles with a lot of emotional turmoil as a result of her troubling history. I would suggest this book for high-school aged readers, who would be old enough to understand the issues that Kate faces and young enough simply appreciate a good comic. I think that by choosing to openly identify Kate as a lesbian (a fact which kind of sets the story in motion), Rucka presents a new portrait of the superhero--one that portrays their battles in and out of costume.

Stitches, A Memoir is written and drawn by David Small. Small is known as an illustrator of children’s books. His drawing style matches the intensity of his words in this book, which there are few of. There are pages and pages of intense gray-washed images that recreate Small’s painful childhood. The memoir takes us from David Small at the age of 6 to 16.

Dysfunctional is putting it mildly. There’s his father, an oblivious physician who would expose him to near-fatal doses of radiation on his home x-ray machine as a cure-all for David’s ailments and his mother, a not-so-much-in-the-closet lesbian who was emotionally detached and would excessively scold and torment David.
Small shares with us his journey from ailing child to cancer patient, to the troubled 16-year-old who runs away from home to escape his torment.
Pain, disillusionment, alienation, and family dysfunction and ultimately redemption are the themes of Stitches, A Memoir. And while this book does have characteristics of YA lit, I would not recommend it for the younger reader. In fact, though this book is a Graphic Novel and has won YA Lit awards, it is found in the adult section at many bookstores (according to sites I have researched.) The younger reader might be disturbed by this profound, tragic story.
I would suggest this book for the older YA reader, perhaps 17 and up. Kids will be drawn to this graphic novel if placed in the YA Lit section of a bookstore but when the delve into the pages, they might get more than they bargained for.

Overall, this book was excellent and I would definitely recommend it!

Here is a link to Amazon.com that has an awesome interview with David Small. Scroll down to get to it.

http://www.amazon.com/Stitches-Memoir-David-Small/dp/0393068579

A.D. New Orleans after the Deluge is a nonfiction graphic novel that was written by Josh Neufeld. The book tells the stories of a handful of real life New Orleans residents and their personal experiences during and after Hurricane Katrina. The book draws upon interviews with actual people represented in the story: newspaper, magazine and blog accounts of the events surrounding Hurricane Katrina and its affects that it had on New Orleans in days to follow the natural disaster. The book also shares the authors own experiences that he had as a Red Cross volunteer in the weeks that followed the storm. Each person has their own story in this book that impacts the reader. The one story that stood out to me was the couple who would not leave their store even when they knew that they would lose everything once their neighborhood was filled with over five feet of water.
After going back to the YA criteria I second guess whether or not this book meets the criteria at all. For example this book is not written from the viewpoint of a young adult. The book does not put the parents or older adults to the back; I feel they are more or less the ones telling the story. I do feel that the book meets the criteria that the book is fast paced. It keeps my attention. I don’t know if that is just because I have an interest in the story of what happened during the storm and after the storm or because it was fast paced enough to keep my attention throughout the whole thing. The book for sure meets the criteria of having many different characters that are from different backgrounds and cultural groups. The book to me was very positive and it got each individuals story out.
If you want more information on this book you could look up the author’s name which is Josh Neufeld.
I would recommend this book for use in the classroom. I think it would share some of our countries very important history. I think it would be appropriate for middle school and high school age children. I feel it is a book that you could get the kids to read and it would keep their attention and it would not turn into a book that they would not read and learn nothing from.