Graphic Novel Classroom Kits

Get Graphic! 

Classroom Kits provide you with the books and support material you need to teach selected classroom units with a graphic novel.

Each Graphic Novel Classroom Kit contains 30 copies of the selected book, subject specific audio/visual material, a folder of support materials and an information/contents sheet. The subject focus and specific content of each kit is listed below.

To request a kit, you must first locate it in the B&ECPL catalog.  This can be done by performing a title, author, or keyword search; or use the phrase "graphic novel classroom kit" to get a list of all the kits owned by the library.

When you have identified the kit that you would like to borrow, click on the "request title" link in the upper left corner of the page and proceed through the request process as directed.

Kits have a loan period of 6 weeks and renewals are not permitted.  You may have 2 kits checked out per library card at any one time. Kits may be returned to any B&ECPL library location.

Kits are available on a first come, first served basis. It may take up to one week for delivery to your pick-up library, so be sure to plan ahead!

To access the B&ECPL catalog to find and request a Graphic Novel Classroom Kit, please click here

Available Titles

American Born Chinese (Gene Yang)
Anne Frank's Diary: The Graphic Adaptation by Ari Folman (Adapter), David Polonsky (Illustrator), and Anne Frank (Contributor)
The Arrival (Shaun Tan)
Journey Into Mohawk Country (H.M. van den Bogaert and George O’Connor)
March by John Lewis & Andrew Aydin (Writers) and Nate Powell (Illustrator)
Maus I: A Survivor’s Tale: My Father Bleeds History (Art Spiegelman)
Maus II: A Survivor’s Tale: and Here My Troubles Began (Art Spiegelman)
Satchel Paige (James Sturm and Rich Tommaso)
They Called Us Enemy by George Takei, Justin Eisinger & Steven Scott (Authors), and Harmony Becker (Illustrator)

Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation
By Anne Frank

This graphic novel is the only graphic novelization of Anne Frank’s diary that has been authorized by the Anne Frank Foundation and uses text from the diary and created by two Israeli-borns, Ari Folman, a director, screenwriter, and film composer, and David Polonsky, an illustrator. Direct quotation and adapted text from The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank, edited by Otto H. Frank and Mirjam Presser ©1995 by Doubleday, a division of Penguin Random House.

Subject Focus: antisemitism, concentration camps, discrimination, citizenship, individual rights, Jewish, Nazi/Nazis, prejudice, World War II 

Support Materials:

Biography Sheet
How to Read A Graphic Novel
Lesson Plan
Further Resources

The Arrival
By Shaun Tan
The Arrival is a wordless graphic novel that tellhttps://www.buffalolib.org/sites/default/files/getgraphic/resources/HowtoReadaGraphicNovel.pdfs the story of a man who is forced to leave his family and country behind in search of more safe and promising lands.  He travels a long way to reach a country that is completely foreign: strange animals, odd customs and an indecipherable language.  Like many immigrants, this man must do the best he can in order to survive in a culture of unlimited unknowns. After reading The Arrival, readers can truly relate to the struggle of what it is like to be an outsider unsure of how to get by in a new world. 

Subject Focus
Social Studies: immigration, cultural differences, adaptation, assimilation.
English: inference, context cues, projection, transitions, character development, wordless communication.

Support Materials 
Arrival Fiction and Non-fiction
Arrival Films
Arrival Lesson Plans
ScienceArtCurricula
The Arrival in the English Language Arts Curriculum
The Arrival in the Social Studies Curriculum

American Born Chinese
By Gene Yang
American Born Chinese is a tale comprised of three different story lines, three different characters, but one single idea.  Jin Wang, the son of Chinese immigrants, eats lunch by himself in the corner of the schoolyard and gets picked on by bullies and jocks, but dreams of how he could fit in.  The question is how far will he go to get it?  The second storyline is the tale of the Monkey King. Not content to be merely a monkey, the Monkey King did everything in his power to become a Great Sage, Equal of Heaven, until he was informed by Tze-Yo-Tzuh, creator of all existence, that he was merely a monkey after all. It's not until the Monkey King can accept what he is that he is able to free himself from his self-induced prison.  Last there is the sitcom plight of Danny, an All-America teen shamed by his cousin Chin-Kee. Buck-toothed, with a long braid and in traditional Chinese dress, Chin-Kee is an amalgamation of all the racist stereotypes held about Chinese people.  Jin's hopes and humiliations might be mirrored in Chin-Kee's destructive glee or the Monkey King's struggle to come to terms with himself, but each character's expressions and actions are perfectly familiar.  By the conclusion of the book all three story lines creatively and effectively come together to deliver a single lesson:  accept who you are and you'll already have reached out to others.

Subject Focus:  Identity, Immigration, Stereotypes, Discrimination, Racism, Chinese Mythology.

Support Materials 
ABC Chinese Mythology
ABC Discrimination Facts
ABC DVD: Breaking the Silence: Asian American Students Speak Out
ABC Fiction Books
ABC Films
ABC Immigration
ABC Lesson Plan Immigration
ABC Lesson Plan Mythology
ABC Lesson Plan Stereotype
ABC Monkey Mythology
ABC Non-Fiction Books
ABC Statements About Immigration
ABC Stereotypes
ABC Websites for Students

Journey Into Mohawk Country 
by H.M. van den Bogaert and George O’Connor
With the exact text from van den Bogaert’s travel log, this graphic novel transports readers to the 1600s when Dutch settlers were exploring the Northeastern lands.  O’Connor’s graphics add new depths to the text, making it easier for readers to fully understand the amazing trek that was taken across what is now New York State.

Journey Into Mohawk Country Subject focus
Social studies: geography, Native American studies, economics, New York State history
English: primary source documents, narrative, journaling

Journey Into Mohawk Country Support Materials
Activities
Curriculum Guidelines for ELA 
Curriculum Guidelines for Social Studies 
DVD: Iroquios Indians of North America
Fiction Books 
Films
Lesson Plan
Lesson Plan - Six Nations 
NonFiction Books

March (Trilogy)
By John Lewis

This trilogy was a number-one New York Times Bestseller and won many awards and recognitions, including the National Book Award, Coretta Scott King Award, and Robert F. Kennedy Book Recognition. The series presents a saga and perspectives on the extraordinary real-life superhero, John Lewis, a lifelong civil and human rights activist and congressman.  This series is divided into three parts: book one covers his youth in rural Alabama, his life-changing meeting with Martin Luther King Jr., and their battle against segregation through nonviolent protest; book two begins after the success of the nonviolent protests in Alabama and covers his experiences with police brutality and beating, imprisonment, arson, and murder attempts as the young Lewis put his life on the frontline with the Freedom Riders; book three starts from the 2009 inauguration of President Barack Obama and flashes back to the 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing, the struggle to secure voting rights, and a historic political march from Selma to the capital city of Alabama. The entire series is essential for students to learn about and understand this critical and tumultuous time in American history.

Subject Focus: civic engagement, civil rights movement, human rights, individual rights, nonviolent resistance, racism, segregation, social justice
Support Materials:
Biography Sheet
How to Read A Graphic Novel
Lesson Plan
Lesson Plan Activities from The Rendell Center for Civics & Civic Engagement
Further Resources

Maus I: A Survivor’s Tale: My Father Bleeds History

By Art Spiegelman
Art Spiegelman tells the story of his father's hardships and survival during the Holocaust.  Each scene opens at the elder Spiegelman's home in Rego Park, N.Y. Art, who was born after the war, is visiting his father, Vladek, to record his experiences in Nazi-occupied Poland.  The Nazis, portrayed as cats, introduce increasingly repressive measures, until the Jews, drawn as mice, are systematically hunted and herded toward the Final Solution.  Vladek was a POW, but managed to sneak out of one of the camps that held him, only to later find himself and his family thrown into the Auschwitz death camps.  Vladek saves himself and his wife by a combination of luck and wits, all the time enduring the torment of a hunted outcast. Spiegelman relates the effect of those events on the survivors' later years, including his own adult life as he too, bears the burden of his parents' experiences. This is a survivor's tale, as well as a tale of how a son tries to patch up a damaged relationship with his father.

Subject Focus:  Memoir, World War II, Discrimination, Religious Persecution, Genocide, Family History, World History

Support Materials: DVDs: Frontline: Memory of the Camps Life in a Jar

Maus II: A Survivor’s Tale: and Here My Troubles Began
By Art Spiegelman
This sequel picks up where Maus I left off, with Vladek's separation from his wife Anja, after arriving at Auschwitz.  There Vladek must struggle to survive starvation and disease as well as the guards and the ovens -- all while trying to get news of his wife from Auschwitz's second camp, Birkenau. In the WWII segments, Spiegelman captures the horrors that took place during that time and explores survivor’s guilt and generational guilt. Maus II is not only Vladek’s continuing story, but also Spiegelman’s story as he continues to work on this book after his father's death. The interconnections and complex characterizations are engrossing, as are the vivid personal accounts of living in the camps. This is a heartbreaking look at one of history's greatest tragedies.

Subject Focus:  Memoir, World War II, Discrimination, Religious Persecution, Genocide, Family History, World History, Family Relationships

Support Materials
Fiction Nonfiction books
Films
Maus in the English Liturature Curriculum
Maus in the Social Studies CurriculumFinal
Maus Lesson Plan
PBS guide to using memory of the camps
Talking Points

Satchel Paige 
By James Sturm and Rich Tommaso
This historical graphic novel tells the story of one of the greatest baseball legends Leroy “Satchel” Paige.  Living in a racist era and facing adversity every day, Paige challenged Jim Crow laws while playing in the Negro Baseball Leagues.  By demonstrating the true discrimination African Americans faced in the Jim Crow south, this book gives readers a genuine taste of the time period.

Satchel Paige Subject focus
Social studies: racism, Jim Crow laws, Civil Rights movement
English: point of view, perspective, narrative, literary timelines

Satchel Paige Support Materials
Activities
Branch Rickey and Jackie Robinson: Interview Essay 
Casey at the Bat
Curriculum Guidelines for ELA 
Curriculum Guidelines for Social Studies 
DVD: Only the Ball was White
Fiction Books
Films
Lesson Plan - Jim Crow 
NonFiction Books 
Spring Training Essay

They Called Us Enemy
By George Takei

This graphic novel is presented as a memoir of George Takei and his family's varied experiences of injustice during World War II and the post-war era. They were forced to move from their home, sent to live in a temporary detention center, and imprisoned behind barbed wire just because they were viewed as Japanese, as a threat to the United States, even though they were all American citizens.

Subject Focus: citizenship, discrimination, individual rights, incarceration, internment camp, Japanese Americans, national security, social justice, prejudice, World War II 

Support Materials:
Biography Sheet
How to Read A Graphic Novel
Lesson Plan
Further Resources