With Harpo’s right-wingers cutting literacy programs here in Canada, it’s fitting that I’m heading across the border to the US next week to talk to librarians about comics and literacy. After all, librarians and educators in the US are on the front lines in the battle to ensure that the future generation knows how to think independently and critically about the laws they live by and the people who make them.

With that in mind, I’ve been invited to speak at the upcoming Library Development Day for the Genesee Valley Board of Co-operative Educational Service. I’ll be talking about how comics can be used to foster literacy and springboard kids into a life of reading. I’m really excited because literacy and comics are two subjects that I am very passionate about and have no trouble going on and on about.

Passion is something that I know I’ll find when I meet the librarians of the GVBOCES. In both the US and here in Canada, librarians, educators and the schools they work in are constantly being tested, undermined and underfunded.

It takes a lot of passion to continue working in an environment like that and I’m looking forward to meeting them all.