This is the Children’s Bookshelf and I’m Sue Ann Martin.
GLASS TOWN: The Imaginary World of the Brontës by graphic novelist Isabel Greenberg is a fascinating look at the unbridled imagination of Charlotte, Anne, Emily and Branwell during their childhood days. The storytelling method of this historical fiction is captivating in both word and picture.
Older readers will be hooked from the prologue on by what character Charles Wellesley says to writer Charlotte: “Spin me a yarn, Miss Brontë. Weave me a web.” And that is exactly what happens in the 224 pages of this superb graphic novel. It is a world where the characters pop out of the children’s imaginations and become actual characters in their story----conversing and moving the action on equal footing with the children themselves. When the siblings’ real father returns from a trip with a box of toy soldiers they use their collective magic to allow the toy soldiers to jump out of the box and join their story as characters such as the Duke of Wellington and the great Napoleon.
The skillful drawings shape the impact of the action with visuals that
are attractive, detailed and elegant. The reader sees the siblings constructing a city of stories by hunting for ideas in their father’s considerable library. The double spreads of the building of the City of Stories and of Glass Town itself are full of visual delights. This book needs a nimble reader, however, who will enjoy following all of the ideas, action, drama and magic!
Glass Town: The Imaginary World of the Brontës is a close-up look at four childhood siblings as they play with ideas, possibilities and consequences! It is designed for older readers 14 and up (Abrams Comicarts, 2020).
The Children’s Bookshelf is a production of WCMU. Links to the podcast and the activity questions, ideal for home use, can be found at Children’s Bookshelf dot org.
Activity questions for Glass Town
Was your childhood, like the children in this book, filled with playful imaginings? Think back. Did you play alone or with siblings? What was the setting of one of your childhood plays? Did you play a teacher in a classroom, a dancer on a stage, a boat captain on the sea or possibly a starship captain in outer space? Whatever it was, close our eyes and try to see it and hear it. Then write out a description of your childhood playacting. Keep it safely in a notebook for future additions as you remember more details over time.
How is the visual style of this graphic novel different from other graphic novels you have read? Study the drawings, the colors, the facial expressions, the details and the unusual look of the words half done in print and the other half possibly in cursive.
Which of the four chapters did you enjoy the most? Why? Which of the four siblings did you like the best? Why? Which of the characters in this graphic novel interested you mostly and why?
Go online and find out what novels each of the three sisters wrote when they were adults. Have you ever read any of them? Try it.