Do you like graphic novels? Join our Graphic Novel Discussion Group! Each month readers discuss alternative graphic novels tackling real-life issues and non-fiction subjects, and the independent publishers that release both alternative and mainstream superhero, sci-fi, and fantasy graphic novels and comics.
This group meets on Zoom. Stop by the Reference Desk to register and pick up a copy of the book.
For August we will be reading Ginseng Roots: A Memoir by Craig Thompson.
About Ginseng Roots:
When Blankets first published in 2003, Craig Thompson’s seminal memoir about first love and faith lost in rural Wisconsin debuted to rapturous acclaim. The winner of two Eisner and three Harvey Awards, it is to this day considered one of the all-time great works of graphic storytelling. Now, in Craig’s long-awaited return to the autobiographical form, comes the story that Blankets left out.
Ginseng Roots follows Craig and his siblings, who spent the summers of their youth weeding and harvesting rows of coveted American ginseng on rural Wisconsin farms for one dollar an hour. In his trademark breathtaking pen-and-ink work, Craig interweaves this lost youth with the 300-year-old history of the global ginseng trade and the many lives it has tied together—from ginseng hunters in ancient China, to industrial farmers and migrant harvesters in the American Midwest, to his own family still grappling with the aftershocks of the bitter past.
