Manga Manga Recs for School Library

[Roxie Faye]

[color=#9933ff]I have been given the priviledged task of selecting manga that will be ordered for the middle school library in my town that serves grade 6-8, ages 11-14.

The school librarian is friends with my mom, and my mom said that I would look over and recommend manga before she bought any. I've looked over the titles and while I know some of them, I'm not familiar with all the titles, nor are all of the titles age appropriate (I nearly said "yikes!" when I saw Angel Sanctuary in there!! Yuki Kaori is not for kiddies. *__*)

I'm going to put up a list of all the titles, minus the ones I know are completely not appropriate. Since I don't know about all of them, I would be grateful if you would give me your input on which mangas [i]you[/i] would choose based on how much you liked it, as well as age appropriateness, and most importantly [b]WHY[/b]. Try to include a mix in your recommendations - nothing more boring than ALL love stories or ALL action. I would love it if you gave me a short summary of what it's about, and why you thought it was a good choice. Or, if you see something that is completely graphic and violent that wouldn't be a good match, please let me know. ^_^

Also, important note: If you know that any of these have strong Boy Love/yaoi hints, PLEASE let me know. I'm actually more concerned about BL than I am about violence - public school system, sexuality, you know? ;_;

Thank you for your input. By doing so, we can recommend entertaining and fairly non-life scarring manga to kids who we can only hope will grow into avid anime fans. :P

[b]Bleach[/b]
[b]Cowboy Bebop[/b] (the manga; vol 1, 2, 3..)
[b]Demon Diary[/b]
[b]D.N.Angel[/b] (I'm pretty sure I'm going to pick this one)
[b]Dragon Knights[/b]
[b]Fullmetal Alchemist[/b]
[b]Fruits Basket[/b] (Question - are there a lot of yaoi/BL hints? I actualy don't know about fruits basket)
[b]Girl Got Game[/b]
[b].hack[/b] (Legend of the twilight)
[b]Initial D[/b]
[b]Jing: King of Bandits[/b]
[b]Kare Kano[/b]
[b]Kill Me, Kiss Me[/b] (oh man, as much as I love this, I'm not sure it's good for 11-14)
[b]Mars[/b]
[b]Naruto[/b]
[b]Neon Genesis Evangelion[/b]
[b]Oh My Goddess![/b]
[b]One Piece[/b]
[b]Peach Girl[/b] (heh)
[b]Rave Master[/b]
[b]Rurouni Kenshin[/b]
[b]Shaman King[/b]

These are classified as "older teen":
[b]Ceres, Celestial Legend[/b]
[b]Fushigi Yugi[/b]
[b]Inu Yasha[/b]
[b]Negima![/b]
[b]Pet Shop of Horrors[/b]
[b]Ranma 1/2[/b]
[b]Tsubasa[/b]
[b]xxxHolic[/b] (I think I'm going to pick this one, too. What do you think?)[/color]

[Dagger]

Fruits Basket delivers the occasional cross-dressing joke (no more so than what you might see in mainstream entertainment, though). On the whole it's quite innocuous and would be well suited to this type of collection.

Demon Diary has BL hints, but since it's primarily a comedy, and there's nothing to suggest that the whole story isn't just about passionate [i]friendship[/i], I don't think it would be particularly risky to get it.

In Kare Kano, the main female character [spoiler]becomes pregnant[/spoiler] in her senior year of high school.

Both Ceres and Fushigi Yuugi feature attempted rape. Peach Girl has some inappropriate situations as well--I thought there was a story arc that involves Momo being drugged and tricked into thinking [spoiler]she's had sex.[/spoiler]

Evangelion is thematically intense and disturbing (and it also features Kaworu, although from what I've heard, the manga isn't as BL-suggestive as the anime).

Negima is sold shrink-wrapped in most stores, so it might not be the best choice if you're trying to be conservative about fanservice and whatnot. xxxHOLiC doesn't have anything objectionable as far as sexuality is concerned, although when it comes to CLAMP titles, you can never really be sure where things will head in the future...

I'll edit other suggestions into this post later, but for now:

Hikaru no Go
Full Moon wo Sagashite
Hunter x Hunter

~Dagger~

[Kei]

[color=darkblue][size=1]Along with Dagger's suggestions, I would also throw in [b]Yu Yu Hakusho[/b], due to the fact that it still has quite the fanbase here in America and is, on the large, a good series for people to break their gums on.

As far as other choices, you can always also try and throw some educational manga there like including [b]Barefoot Gen[/b] in the mix. Although it would be definitely classified as older teen, considering it does cover what happened in Hiroshima right after the bombing in a fairly detailed manner.

[b]Yotsuba&![/b] is a cute and simple little series that can draw people in and is fairly easy to follow, so it's also a nice gum-breaker.

If I think of anything else, I'll edit it in.[/color][/size]