Adam Shields
Summary: A graphic novel adaptation of a 1940s Superman radio drama.
I don’t remember who recommended this, but when I saw the recommendation I reserved a copy at our library for my son and I to read. I picked it up at the library and my son finished it in a single sitting. I read it that night after he went to bed.
Part of why I wanted to get it was that my son, who is a big graphic novel fan, has no real connection to super hero stories. I keep trying to get him interested in super hero movies so that he would also add some super hero comics to his reading but the closest he gets is Duck Tales.
Another part of why I wanted him to read this is that I continually try to find ways to help him see the world around him. My 10 year old will be starting 5th grade in a couple weeks. My kids have gone to the school where my wife works since they started school. It is about 15 minutes from our house and not the school we are zoned for, but we choose it in particular because we want our kids in a diverse school. The school is about 10% non-Hispanic white students and about 70% low income. My kids have a diverse set of friends that I did not have when I was growing up.
My kids are sensitive and do not particularly like super hero stories because they tend to be too violent for them. I was concerned about this whether this would be too much, but he read it before I had a chance to. When he was about 2/3 of the way through the story he came up to me and asked if the Klan was a real thing or if it was just a super hero villain that was made up. It is a very real question and I stopped my work and we had a 15 minute history lesson about what the Klan was and the three eras of the KKK.
Part of what I appreciate about this story is that it is both about the Klan and an immigration story. The Klan in different part of the country did have different targets and the Klan in the 2nd and 3rd eras (after WW1 and after WW2) was active in every state. There were millions of people who were enrolled in state level Klan organization in the 2nd generation (roughly 1915 to the 1940s). What many do not understand is that during this era where were nearly 4 times as many members in Indiana as there was in Georgia. This second generation Klan was started after the Birth of a Nation movie and grew quickly over the next ten years. But then a major figure in the leadership was convicted of murder and the growth slowed. The IRS essentially shut down the formal membership structure in the late 1940s for failure to pay taxes.
But the radio drama that this Superman story is based on also played a role in decreasing the interest in the Klan. There are several pages of history at the back of the book that details the original story and the adaptation to the comic book form in this book.
This story is about a Chinese family that moves out of Chinatown after the father gets a good job with the public health department. The son is a good baseball player and is recruited to pitch for the local little league baseball team that Jimmy Olson helps to coach. The previous pitcher resents being displaced by a Chinese boy and complains to his uncle. The uncle is a leader in the local KKK and they burn a cross in the front yard of home of the new residents. The story continues with an attempted lynching.
The daughter of the family uses her skills of watching what is going on around her as she tries to fit in to understand who was behind the Klan and works with Jimmy Olson to get Superman involved in saving her brother.
I won’t spoil the whole story (although that is the main story arc) but I do want to note that part of Superman’s early stories were fighting Nazis. In this book, Superman has to fight a nazi after the end of WW2 who is in a super suit powered by Kryptonite. In my recent book club, we read White Flight about Atlanta and part of the opposition to integrated housing came from an openly white supremacist nazi group in the late 1940s, right about the same time that this story was set. It was amazing to me that so soon after the end of WW2 there were nazi groups that arose around the country. Much of the opposition to MLK Jr in Chicago was from an openly Nazi group in Chicago, but that was in 1966, not 1946.
I think that graphic novels are particularly good at telling history for kids. While this is not only oriented for kids, I think it is a bit more kid friendly than the March series about John Lewis. That series I think is still too old for my 10 year old because it is a more complex presentation of history. Superman Smashes the Klan worked just fine for my 10 year old to read on his own and for me to read on my own and we both appreciated it.
Because it was available at my library, I also got my son the first book in the Secret Coders’ series by the same author. It is a mystery series using logic puzzles in a graphic novel format and my son devoured that book as well. I will get him the rest of that series soon.
This was originally posted at my blog at https://bookwi.se/superman/
Originally posted at bookwi.se.
Summary: A graphic novel adaptation of a 1940s Superman radio drama.
I don’t remember who recommended this, but when I saw the recommendation I reserved a copy at our library for my son and I to read. I picked it up at the library and my son finished it in a single sitting. I read it that night after he went to bed.
Part of why I wanted to get it was that my son, who is a big graphic novel fan, has no real connection to super hero stories. I keep trying to get him interested in super hero movies so that he would also add some super hero comics to his reading but the closest he gets is Duck Tales.
Another part of why I wanted him to read this is that I continually try to find ways to help him see the world around him. My 10 year old will be starting 5th grade in a couple weeks. My kids have gone to the school where my wife works since they started school. It is about 15 minutes from our house and not the school we are zoned for, but we choose it in particular because we want our kids in a diverse school. The school is about 10% non-Hispanic white students and about 70% low income. My kids have a diverse set of friends that I did not have when I was growing up.
My kids are sensitive and do not particularly like super hero stories because they tend to be too violent for them. I was concerned about this whether this would be too much, but he read it before I had a chance to. When he was about 2/3 of the way through the story he came up to me and asked if the Klan was a real thing or if it was just a super hero villain that was made up. It is a very real question and I stopped my work and we had a 15 minute history lesson about what the Klan was and the three eras of the KKK.
Part of what I appreciate about this story is that it is both about the Klan and an immigration story. The Klan in different part of the country did have different targets and the Klan in the 2nd and 3rd eras (after WW1 and after WW2) was active in every state. There were millions of people who were enrolled in state level Klan organization in the 2nd generation (roughly 1915 to the 1940s). What many do not understand is that during this era where were nearly 4 times as many members in Indiana as there was in Georgia. This second generation Klan was started after the Birth of a Nation movie and grew quickly over the next ten years. But then a major figure in the leadership was convicted of murder and the growth slowed. The IRS essentially shut down the formal membership structure in the late 1940s for failure to pay taxes.
But the radio drama that this Superman story is based on also played a role in decreasing the interest in the Klan. There are several pages of history at the back of the book that details the original story and the adaptation to the comic book form in this book.
This story is about a Chinese family that moves out of Chinatown after the father gets a good job with the public health department. The son is a good baseball player and is recruited to pitch for the local little league baseball team that Jimmy Olson helps to coach. The previous pitcher resents being displaced by a Chinese boy and complains to his uncle. The uncle is a leader in the local KKK and they burn a cross in the front yard of home of the new residents. The story continues with an attempted lynching.
The daughter of the family uses her skills of watching what is going on around her as she tries to fit in to understand who was behind the Klan and works with Jimmy Olson to get Superman involved in saving her brother.
I won’t spoil the whole story (although that is the main story arc) but I do want to note that part of Superman’s early stories were fighting Nazis. In this book, Superman has to fight a nazi after the end of WW2 who is in a super suit powered by Kryptonite. In my recent book club, we read White Flight about Atlanta and part of the opposition to integrated housing came from an openly white supremacist nazi group in the late 1940s, right about the same time that this story was set. It was amazing to me that so soon after the end of WW2 there were nazi groups that arose around the country. Much of the opposition to MLK Jr in Chicago was from an openly Nazi group in Chicago, but that was in 1966, not 1946.
I think that graphic novels are particularly good at telling history for kids. While this is not only oriented for kids, I think it is a bit more kid friendly than the March series about John Lewis. That series I think is still too old for my 10 year old because it is a more complex presentation of history. Superman Smashes the Klan worked just fine for my 10 year old to read on his own and for me to read on my own and we both appreciated it.
Because it was available at my library, I also got my son the first book in the Secret Coders’ series by the same author. It is a mystery series using logic puzzles in a graphic novel format and my son devoured that book as well. I will get him the rest of that series soon.
This was originally posted at my blog at https://bookwi.se/superman/
Originally posted at bookwi.se.