by Danielle Markman, Librarian

Look to the sky! It’s a bird? It’s a plane? No it’s………

Superman has been one of the most iconic comic book heroes, known to many around the world. The last son of Krypton is the spearhead of the Justice League and hero of Metropolis, “the city of tomorrow”. While the citizens of Metropolis and many comic book fans view Clark Kent as Earth’s ultimate defender, Lex Luthor, Superman’s arch nemesis, doesn’t  believe that Superman is who he is praised to be. He sees him as a threat to humanity. So he tries to concoct a plan to get the world to see the man of steel just as the threat he poses to be.

What I love about this story is that it focuses on Lex Luthor more than on Superman. Superman, of course, is an important character but his narrative takes more of a back seat and he is painted in a different light. In this book, you can catch a glimpse of Lex Luthor’s perspective and his motivations to usurp Superman’s hero status. Luthor’s character is a bit more fleshed out than Superman’s. Instead of seeing Luthor as a billionaire megalomaniac, who is a one-note villain madly obsessed with the Kryptonian, we are able to see that Luthor has many faces and takes on many roles.

Luthor has a face that he shows the general public, another for his Lexcorp staff and even another for his more indecent partnerships. He’s intelligent, resourceful, inspiring, charming, ruthless and criminal. Most importantly, we get the opportunity to understand why he questions the ideology behind the caped crusader. Is Superman the hero we need or our worst nightmare? Luthor gives us a very compelling argument.

Writing from the perspective of Luthor, brings to mind great questions that one can ask themselves about what it means to be human, what justice looks like and who are the heroes that protect it. Being that Superman is a fan favorite, Luthor begs the question, why should we view him as our saviour when he could possibly be a threat to humanity? Superman isn’t human. Could he be the threat that we need to be prepared for?

The best thing about this story is the plot. I wish that I could give this novel 6 out of 5 bookmarks because of the plot’s sophistication. It definitely deserves more than one read to truly grasp its depth. The story was written by critically acclaimed author Brian Azzarello, who has also partnered with the same illustrator, Lee Bermejo, the artist who has worked on other well received works with DC, such as Batman: Damned and Joker. Bermejo and Azzarello are truly a dynamic duo.

Lex Luthor is inspiring, seductive, charming and intimidating. Illustrator Lee Bermejo does a really good job with facial expression and makes great  use of  shadow and light to portray a particular emotional element. The artwork helps bring out the complexity of Luthor’s character and helps us see Superman the way Luthor does.Not the most color-rich environment for this work, however, it is perfect for this story. Sometimes the artwork is refreshing, at times it’s dark and gritty. The sharp contrasts help the reader to effectively see the world the way Lex Luthor views it and simultaneously, how the world views Lex Luthor. 

Each page plays off of a single color tone on each turn. This is great because it actually helps with moving the story forward. Most of these pages are either in a tone of blue or red which are Superman’s costume color theme.Speaking of the Justice Leaguer, Bermejo does a great job of painting Superman as Lex sees him, which is very menacing. The art really helped convey Luthor’s sentiment  toward Superman because the hero doesn’t have much dialogue.

Final Thoughts:

Luthor is a very sophisticated read and this was done very well by the wonderful author/illustrator team of Brian Azarrello and Lee Bermejo. I enjoyed that they fleshed out the character of Lex Luthor in a way that really hasn’t been done before. Also, I enjoyed that they presented an argument to help us understand him and his hatred for Superman in a very complex way. Well written heroes deserve well written villains.

You can check out more of the DC Black Label graphic novels through Pratt’s library databases such as Hoopla Digital as well as  any of our physical copies as we are open for Sidewalk Service! 

Stay tuned for the next Comics 411 where there will be a readers’ advisory for DC Black Label’s Batman: Damned .

Other cool readers’ advisories for adult graphic novels: Deborah’s Graphics Galore  graphic novel recommendation videos on Pratt’s Facebook page.

By Sara Wecht, Librarian

I want to preface this talk by saying that I adore Elizabeth Acevedo and her work. After The Poet X came out, I began to pick up her books without even seeing what they were about. The Poet X was a beautiful novel written in prose. Clap When You Land is in a similar format. It alternates between two perspectives, all in poetry. 

Camino and Yahaira don’t know each other, but they are connected by a fateful plane crash killing their father. You learn about the two sides of his life- one with Camino, and one with Yahaira. Yahaira lives in New York with her mother and lives next door to her girlfriend. Camino lives with her aunt in the Dominican Republic, where she attends a private school and helps her aunt as a healer. Her father’s death means a lot of things for Camino: she can’t afford her school; she can’t rely on her father’s reputation to protect her from sexual advances and implied forced  prostitution; she probably can’t go to Columbia University and become a doctor; she probably can’t ever go to the states at all. Yahaira knows that her father had another wife. She lost all trust in him, but sorely misses him as well. Her grief, while valid, isn’t as life-shattering as Camino’s.

This book is about acceptance, loss, grief, poverty, and more. The two girls find out about one another and have to accept one another as family, though it’s difficult. They both deal with the loss and grief of their father, but Camino also deals with the loss of a life she could have had. Taking place in two different locations, this book is also about multicultural identity. Both girls want to visit the other’s home before they even know about each other. They struggle with embodying an identity that’s based on one particular culture. They have a longing for the other place as a missing piece to their identity due to their heritage. 

Don’t worry. Things get better. That’s all I’ll tell you!

Below are more books by Elizabeth Acevedo that you may also be interested in.

by Lisa Greenhouse, Librarian

Wes Moore’s and Erica L. Green’s Five Days: The Fiery Reckoning of an American City (One World, 2020) introduces us to nine Baltimoreans in the period following Freddie Gray’s death in police custody on April 19, 2015.  There is John Angelos, Executive Vice President of the Baltimore Orioles, who is tasked with making decisions about whether and how to play baseball in the midst of civil unrest. There is Greg Butler, former Poly basketball star, whose decision-making about how to express his anger is at a critical point commandeered by that very anger.  

Each short chapter is headed by the name of one of the nine people.  The names alternate throughout the book’s length, disappearing then returning as the days unfold.  There is Tawanda, an elementary school teacher, who has for two years protested her brother Tyrone West’s death at the hands of the Baltimore Police alone or mostly alone until joining forces with the Freddie Gray protestors.  And there is Anthony, a longtime manager of the Shake & Bake roller skating rink in Penn North, who watches the uprising unfold and draw in several of the young men he has mentored. 

Jenny is a juvenile court public defender, who monitors the protests and provides legal assistance to those arrested.  Maj. Marc Partee of the Baltimore Police is assigned to protect the Inner Harbor on April 25 and to protect Mondawmin Mall two days later on the night of Gray’s funeral.  

There is Billy Murphy, attorney and scion of the Baltimore family that founded the Afro-American newspaper, who represents the Gray Family in their suit against the Baltimore Police.  And finally, there is Nick Mosby, a Baltimore City Council member, who represents the district where Freddie Gray lived and died.

The racial geography of Baltimore is often compared to a butterfly.  The butterfly’s body correlates with the affluent, mostly white center running from Federal Hill north to Homeland and the butterfly’s wings correlate with the under-resourced, largely Black, formerly redlined east and west sides.  Unfortunately for the people who live there, those wings mostly don’t fly.  Moore and Green take us to the wings and to people from the body who have made a commitment to the wings.   

On April 25th, while Orioles fans and protesters are clashing outside of the stadium, John Angelos tweets a call for racial justice.  Nick Mosby, after graduating with a B.S. in electrical engineering from Tuskegee University, could have moved anywhere but convinced his wife, Baltimore’s future States Attorney, also a Tuskegee graduate, to move with him back to the Baltimore he loves.  During the uprising, Nick frantically tweets out positive pictures he takes of Baltimore, convinced that the media will concentrate on scenes of violence and destruction, painting an unrealistic picture.  Still, worried about their safety, Mosby sends his daughters out of town.

Like Mosby, many of the people in Five Days must confront contradictions.  Jenny who is a white ally, in the midst of the chaos ensuing on April 27 in Penn North, drops her cellphone. A young African-American man picks it up.  Worried that she will lose years of contacts and notes, she begs him to give it back to her.  The young man asks her simply, “You thought I wouldn’t?”  Jenny, thus, is brought face to face with her unconscious expectations.

The most compelling character in Five Days is Greg Butler.  Though having grown up in difficult and unstable circumstances, Greg excelled in school, was admitted to the Polytechnic Institute, and became a high school basketball star.  He almost made it off the butterfly’s wing but not quite.  A peculiarity in the way that weighted GPA was calculated in Baltimore City put an end to his college aspirations as he scored a hair under the GPA necessary to join the NCAA. 

On April 27, from a starting point in East Baltimore, Greg follows the smoke he sees rising across town to the heart of the uprising in Penn North.  There, dawning a gas mask and borrowing a bicycle, he takes a leadership role in the uprising.  But a split-second decision, which he later regrets, introduces him to the Baltimore legal system.  His life seems always at the mercy of small increments in a way that people on the butterfly’s body aren’t.

If you are interested in Five Days, you might also be interested in The Other Wes Moore (Spiegel & Grau, 2010), Wes Moore’s story of his own upbringing in Baltimore and The Bronx.  The Maryland Department carries those books and more.

by Naomi Hafter, Librarian

2020 has been an awkward, unusual time, where so much was turned on its head. Many things will continue to be different as we go forward. How shall we respond? Where shall we find meaning? As things begin opening up we may find ourselves creating an understanding of our experiences and learning new ways of handling what was second nature. Victor Frankl used his experiences to portray people’s survival.

We may not be able to change anything about our circumstances. We can shape our attitude and outlook. How we respond to our surroundings can change and help us successfully manage. 

Living through a perfectly ghastly experience of the Concentration Camps Victor Frankl saw people who survived as people who had meaning in, or purpose to, their lives. Meaning despite what was going on around them, their attitude and response kept them alive. Frankl was a doctor, having studied psychiatry and neurology, before WWII, his experience and found people who had a reason for their lives were able to bear their surroundings.

With many of our civil and religious rituals and lives changed, with mourning and grieving rituals stopped and as we forge ahead with new routines, where and how can we renew meaning?

Many things resonated with me, this sentence is one:

“The attempt to develop a sense of humor and to see things in a humorous light is some kind of a trick learned while mastering the art of living.” (pg 44)

There are many books we can read to help us find our way as we continue our journey. Here are several.

We’re so excited about all of the new changes on our website!  New sections dedicated to young children, kids, teens, and adults highlight all of the resources the Pratt has to offer. The new site is also mobile-friendly so it’s easy to navigate. 

Another one of our favorite parts is the What’s New section on the homepage. You don’t have to look far for the latest materials available from the Pratt Library. Take a look at the eBooks you can download, and the books and DVDs you can reserve for Sidewalk Service.

If you haven’t visited the new prattlibrary,org yet, go ahead and check it out now!