{"id":1213,"date":"2013-10-27T17:09:57","date_gmt":"2013-10-27T22:09:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/?p=1213"},"modified":"2013-10-11T17:11:21","modified_gmt":"2013-10-11T22:11:21","slug":"gordon-the-giraffe-original-graphic-novel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/gordon-the-giraffe-original-graphic-novel\/","title":{"rendered":"Gordon the Giraffe: Original Graphic Novel"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/gordon.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1193\" style=\"border: 0pt none; float: left; padding-right: 10px; padding-bottom: 0px;\" alt=\"Cover of Gordon The Giraffe\" src=\"http:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/gordon-300x300.png\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/gordon-300x300.png 300w, https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/gordon-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/gordon.png 320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Find this book in a library near you!\" href=\"http:\/\/www.worldcat.org\/oclc\/794367385\">Bruce Brown.\u00a0 Gordon the Giraffe: Original Graphic Novel.\u00a0Arcana Studio, 2013. PB. 50p. $5.95.\u00a0 978-1-927424537.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Why is it that each minority group passes through a phase where all their stories feature a noble, self-sacrificing individual who rescues his or her oppressors? Gordon belongs to that tradition of needing to be twice as good as those you hope will accept you as an equal.<\/p>\n<p>In this case, Gordon the giraffe is bullied because he plays \u201cMulunga Doo,\u201d a game of banana tossing and neck twining, with Gary instead of with a girl. Gordon&#8217;s mother is supportive, and tells him to follow his heart, but the other boys decide to enforce their ideas of what&#8217;s right.\u00a0 Their plan goes awry, and Gordon saves them from the fate they&#8217;d planned for him.<\/p>\n<p>Another discordant note is the stereotype of Africa as a place of hidden kingdoms with names like \u201cUgladunga.\u201d\u00a0 Combined with those pseudo-African words, the names \u201cGordon\u201d and \u201cGary\u201d are jarring.<\/p>\n<p>Arcana, a new Canadian publisher of graphic novels, has listed Gordon the Giraffe as a graphic novel for all ages.\u00a0 Visually, it appears to be a picture book with full page illustrations, each facing a page of text, a format that may put off readers old enough to empathize with Gordon\u2019s dawning sexual attraction.<\/p>\n<p>The lovely art work by A. Shelton evokes West African fabrics and savanna landscapes as it amplifies and explains the text, yet transitions sometimes seem to be missing, leaving the reader dependent on the pictures to follow the plot.<\/p>\n<p>Nevertheless, there are so few books for elementary school aged children that attempt to address bullying of gay kids that this story will have value for now.\u00a0 The book will also work as a read-aloud selection for small audiences, and the text font is large enough to be readable for some children with impaired vision.<\/p>\n<p>Reviewer: <strong>Carolyn Caywood<\/strong>, Retired<\/p>\n<p>Virginia Beach Public Library<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bruce Brown.\u00a0 Gordon the Giraffe: Original Graphic Novel.\u00a0Arcana Studio, 2013. PB. 50p. $5.95.\u00a0 978-1-927424537.\u00a0 Why is it that each minority group passes through a phase where all their stories feature a noble, self-sacrificing individual who rescues his or her oppressors? Gordon belongs to that tradition of needing to be twice as good as those you [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1164,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[29,31,21],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1213"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1164"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1213\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.glbtrt.ala.org\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}