Hello, Radio Readers. I’m Jane Holwerda from Dodge City, Kansas. Believe it or not, we’re just about to the end of our Spring 2022 Series “Graphic Novels: Worth a Thousand Words.” Book Leaders and Radio Readers will be getting together for a live on-air discussion on Sunday, May 1, at 6pm. Please join us! You can count on lively and thoughtful conversation—and thousands of words—about Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis; Nora Krug’s Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home; and John Lewis and Andrew Aydin’s March.
You might not know this, but when these works were selected for the Radio Readers’ Spring 2022 Read, some questioned how Radio Readers would respond to the graphic novel as a form, or genre. Hard-core readers can be a little biased against picture books and comic strips, after all.
Yet the graphic novel form itself served for us readers more as portal than barrier. Indeed, minds and hearts opened wide to the life stories Satrapi, Krug, and Lewis shared of persecution and oppression, survivor’s guilt and genocide, and racial injustice. Many of us wondered whereas individuals and as a society we might fit within the frames of these provocative graphic novels. From religious persecution in Iran, to holocaust history in Germany, through struggles for civil rights and racial justice in the United States, we’ve explored the most disturbingly inhumane eras of the 20th century. Maybe, like me, you’ve wondered what postures and masks we wear to survive; whether we would exile our children to ensure their educations; if we define ourselves by the choices of our ancestors; what we don’t know about our family histories; what we do we risk for the lives and livelihoods of others…
These are just some of the questions asked by book leaders and radio readers during throughout our Spring 2022 read and in response to the graphic novels Persepolis, Belonging, and March. If you’d like to revisit these phenomenal Radio Readers BookBytes, all are available anytime to all at High Plains Public Radio’s website and also on Facebook at HPPR Radio Readers.
Reviewing is a great way to gear up for our live on-air book discussion on Sunday, May 1, starting at 6pm – but it is absolutely not required. All you really have to do is tune in to High Plains Public Radio—on your dial or through the web.
For HPPR’s Radio Readers, I’m Jane Holwerda from Dodge City, Kansas. Thank you for being part of this on-air, online community of readers exploring themes of common interest to those who live and work on the High Plains.