A ‘comic book’ is a periodical. It is published weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, or on some other regular schedule. Though some are only designed for a limited number of issues, the majority are designed to run indefinately. Much like other periodicals they are usually riddled with ads.

A ‘graphic novel’ is one story published all at once that has not previouly been released in comic book form. Graphic novels will generally contain no advertisements.

A ‘trade paperback’ is a collection of comic books from the same series all published in one book with the advertisements removed. They are sometimes (improperly) lumped in with graphic novels.

I hope that clears things up. As far as school reading lists go, I would hope that Art Spiegelman’s Maus eventually finds its way onto them. It is a pulitzer-prize-winning graphic novel that tells the story of the author’s father’s experience in a concentration camp.