For the first time a graphic novel was included in the Canada Reads 2023 competition; Ducks, Two Years in the Oil Sands by Kate Beaton. And she won.

It goes without saying that a good story is the number one requirement for any medium but graphic novels have had to push against the bias that they are nothing more than glorified comics. Archie and Veronica for adults. Not true. Stories told in graphic form can be every bit as moving, engaging, and transformative as any other story well told.

Anyone who loves to read can describe the feeling of being so absorbed in a book the pages turn themselves. In your mind, you hear the voice of the narrator and your own private movie plays in tandem with the words on the page.

A graphic novel is a slightly different reading experience. The drawings give you the framework for the movie playing in your mind. It’s magic how a few simple panels drawn in still life can unfold into moving images. Your imagination fills in the gaps between the panels and in your mind’s eye, the characters are moving and speaking. It’s easy to picture yourself within that world.  

Ducks is the true story of Kate’s gut wrenching experience as a young woman who left her beloved Cape Breton to work in the Alberta oil sands to pay off her student loan. 

She describes her experience with a brave humour and an understanding that her story is not really that unique. How many people from anywhere on the planet have left their home and loved ones because they needed to earn money? Ducks may be particularly familiar to people from the east coast but the loneliness, the isolation, the lack of familial support is the universal story of economic migrants everywhere. 

I would encourage those of you who love to read to try a graphic novel if you’ve never done so. Ducks would be a worthy start.

Stay safe everyone.

Anne Milne is an every Sunday blogger, unless it’s a holiday weekend. Or summertime. Facebook or email.