Phoebe Gloeckner‘s amazing and frightening A Child’s Life and Other Stories was pulled from a California library after it was checked out by an 11-year-old. The mayor referred to it as “how-to book for pedophiles” (which is just insane if you know of Gloeckner’s work). Read the full story here.
It’s another case of how comic books are seen as “lesser” works of art and easily discriminated against. The same 11-year-old could go into the library and pull a book full of sex and violence, read it, and no adult would ever know. But because A Child’s Life has pictures, it’s somehow worse.
You all owe it to yourselves to pick up a copy of A Child’s Life. It’s heart-wrenching, it’s disturbing, but it’s honest. Gloeckner’s not out to glamorize what’s dipicted here — from her (or her comic book counterpart’s) perspective or anyone else’s. It’s a collection of a woman trying to work through and resolve her past.
For a more linear narrative, also check out Gloeckner’s The Diary of a Teenage Girl that covers much of the same territory, except this time, mostly in prose.
(Link to the article taken from Neil Gaiman’s journal.)
