News from The Arthur Holt Library

Some stories are so good that they never die. They just get told over and over again by different generations in ever-evolving forms. Some of the best examples of this are the Greek Myths. These ancient tales continue to inspire writers from all over the world – and none more so than modern comic book creators.

This week, The Arthur Holt Library has been working with the English Department to help our Year 7 boys trace the influence of some of the world’s oldest stories on some of its newest. Sadly, we were unable to let the boys loose in the graphic novels section of the library as we would have liked, but we did manage to scan enough pages to allow the boys to discover just how much modern superheroes owe to their Ancient Greek counterparts.

Whether it’s Achilles and his heel or Superman and his Kryptonite; Hades in the Underworld or Batman in his Bat Cave, the influence of mythology is everywhere. The boys were able to tease out connections between the heroes and the villains, the monsters and the weaponry as well as some of the most prominent plot lines, including Wonder Woman’s slaying of a certain snake-haired nemesis.

Given how popular the hard copies of our comic books, graphic novels and manga are, we also decided that it was time we hunted down a digital service that would give the boys access to these kinds of books at home. Comics Plus gives them access to literally thousands of graphic novels and manga and we are sure that it’s about to become one of our most popular resources.

You can find it under the Digital Resources tab on the Library’s Canvas course. Students can simply sign in using their Trinity log in details and access anything that they would like to read from manga versions of Shakespeare to the ever popular Attack on Titan and Minecraft.

“In the case of good books, the point is not to see how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you.”

― Mortimer J. Adler