Why I Love Graphic Novels About Exploring Family Histories

I was recently lucky enough to read Game On (out October 6), a new middle grade graphic novel by Sina Grace. This thoughtful and entertaining book is about a seventh-grader named Sasan who is so desperate to get his hands on the gaming console that all his friends have that he strikes a deal with his mother: she will buy him the console if he learns Farsi, her native language.

As you may imagine, instead of simply getting his console and moving on with his life, Sasan learns not just Farsi. He also learns how important and interesting his Persian ancestry and traditions are.

It’s a rewarding story with a set-up that never gets old to me.

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I really enjoy graphic novels that follow young people who don’t yet know much about their heritage, either due to lack of interest, as in Game On, or due to lack of opportunity, as in Two Tribes. There’s something deeply satisfying about seeing their journeys play out. Maybe because it reminds me of my own experiences learning about my culture growing up.

I wasn’t into comic books as a kid, so I was taught about my Mexican heritage through other media. I remember being given Spanish dubs of Disney movies and children’s books in both English and Spanish. I also read books like Tomie DePaola’s The Legend of the Poinsettia and Gary Soto and Ed Martinez’s Too Many Tamales.

Sadly, the dubs, the bilingual books, and intermittent Spanish lessons were not enough to help me fully absorb the language. Also, I never ate tamales as a kid, and when I did try them as an adult, I didn’t like them much. But the stories? Those I remember. Those have stuck with me, and stories are still a vital part of my life.

Today, a big part of how I engage with my Hispanic heritage is by reading graphic novels like ¡Ay, Mija! and Miss Quinces. While the latter stars a Honduran American girl, it’s about a quinceañera, which is common across Latin American countries… and which I also didn’t have and didn’t particularly want anyway. I may not always feel the most connected to my culture. But when I read these books with their initially disconnected yet ultimately fulfilled protagonists, I am reminded that there is no official checklist you have to complete before you can be yourself, and that it’s never too late to learn more about who you are and where you come from.

Not only do these kinds of books help educate young readers with backgrounds similar to the protagonists’, but they also teach everyone else about a culture they might not know a lot about. As you’re learning, you also get to experience the characters’ pure joy as they unlock a part of themselves they’d never known about or appreciated before.

What could be better than a book that makes you happy to learn?

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