The Librarian Influencer of the Week is Ashley Hawkins. She is a librarian providing support for 3 schools on her campus in Brooklyn, New York. She is known on social media as the Manga Librarian. Click here to listen now!
Here are some thoughts Ashley shared:
This year she’s focused on creating a place for students to create and relax face-to-face in her library.
Ashley provided an overview about manga, which can be simply defined as Japanese comics. She also provided a more in depth description and gave a little history of manga’s rise to popularity.
Ashley shared that research shows the development of literacy skills in students who read graphic formats is just as strong as the literacy skills in students who read traditional text literature.
She believes that manga readers become lifelong readers.
Ashley hosts a regular anime club and will soon offer a book club with 2 manga titles.
Ashley’s Youtube channel provides some guidance on selecting age-appropriate manga for different grade levels.
She also recommends https://www.graphiclibrary.org/about-me.html and https://www.noflyingnotights.com/about/ to check reviews on manga. You’ll find other resources on her blog which is linked below.
Ashley shares a brief list of some manga series for elementary and middle school libraries.
You can connect with Ashley Hawkins at:
Twitter: @manga_librarian
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themangalibrarian/
AASL Knowledge Quest: https://knowledgequest.aasl.org/author/ahawkins/
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