Revealing and moving storytelling about growing up in the 1970s.
A child’s summer of freedom a half-century ago.
This graphic memoir, set in the 1970s, examines Lapp’s experiences as an early adolescent over the course of a summer vacation. Largely left on his own, Dave, as he is referred to in the text, spends much of his time exploring a field on the edge of town with his friends, collecting and scrutinizing small animals and making other discoveries about the inevitability of change and the human potential for cruelty. Adults make periodic appearances, most commonly to discipline the children for misbehavior or to reveal, through glimpses of dysfunction, their nagging unhappiness and frustration. Lapp moves the narrative briskly and sometimes abruptly from one episode to another, but he steadily builds momentum as he develops themes of unexpected discovery and lurking danger. Dave’s interactions with his rather reckless and aggressive friend Ed are key, and we come to understand how they prompt a reckoning, or at least the beginnings of one, with his own developing moral coordinates. The book’s illustrations are particularly fitting for this material; they seem poised between a juvenile simplicity and a more mature sophistication of form, as if youthful innocence has been blended with and is now gradually yielding to an awareness of new complexities. One of the most intriguing features of the book is Lapp’s representation of a time that, though not that far in the past, seems so because of the way children were allowed to roam through their communities without supervision. Beyond that historical difference, much of the material presents, with consistent sensitivity and insight, conflicts and challenges that have a timeless aura. Ultimately, Lapp succeeds in providing a memorable perspective on the wonder, cruelty, confusion, misery, and joy of a childhood spent largely independently.
Revealing and moving storytelling about growing up in the 1970s.Pub Date: May 21, 2024
ISBN: 9781772620948
Page Count: 540
Publisher: Conundrum Press
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2024
An accessible, informative journey through complex issues during turbulent times.
Immersion journalism in the form of a graphic narrative following a Syrian family on their immigration to America.
Originally published as a 22-part series in the New York Times that garnered a Pulitzer for editorial cartooning, the story of the Aldabaan family—first in exile in Jordan and then in New Haven, Connecticut—holds together well as a full-length book. Halpern and Sloan, who spent more than three years with the Aldabaans, movingly explore the family’s significant obstacles, paying special attention to teenage son Naji, whose desire for the ideal of the American dream was the strongest. While not minimizing the harshness of the repression that led them to journey to the U.S.—or the challenges they encountered after they arrived—the focus on the day-by-day adjustment of a typical teenager makes the narrative refreshingly tangible and free of political polemic. Still, the family arrived at New York’s JFK airport during extraordinarily political times: Nov. 8, 2016, the day that Donald Trump was elected. The plan had been for the entire extended family to move, but some had traveled while others awaited approval, a process that was hampered by Trump’s travel ban. The Aldabaans encountered the daunting odds that many immigrants face: find shelter and employment, become self-sustaining quickly, learn English, and adjust to a new culture and climate (Naji learned to shovel snow, which he had never seen). They also received anonymous death threats, and Naji wanted to buy a gun for protection. He asked himself, “Was this the great future you were talking about back in Jordan?” Yet with the assistance of selfless volunteers and a community of fellow immigrants, the Aldabaans persevered. The epilogue provides explanatory context and where-are-they-now accounts, and Sloan’s streamlined, uncluttered illustrations nicely complement the text, consistently emphasizing the humanity of each person.
An accessible, informative journey through complex issues during turbulent times.Pub Date: Sept. 8, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-30559-6
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Metropolitan/Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Aug. 17, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2020
An erudite and artful, though frustratingly restrained, look at Old Testament stories.
The Book of Genesis as imagined by a veteran voice of underground comics.
R. Crumb’s pass at the opening chapters of the Bible isn’t nearly the act of heresy the comic artist’s reputation might suggest. In fact, the creator of Fritz the Cat and Mr. Natural is fastidiously respectful. Crumb took pains to preserve every word of Genesis—drawing from numerous source texts, but mainly Robert Alter’s translation, The Five Books of Moses (2004)—and he clearly did his homework on the clothing, shelter and landscapes that surrounded Noah, Abraham and Isaac. This dedication to faithful representation makes the book, as Crumb writes in his introduction, a “straight illustration job, with no intention to ridicule or make visual jokes.” But his efforts are in their own way irreverent, and Crumb feels no particular need to deify even the most divine characters. God Himself is not much taller than Adam and Eve, and instead of omnisciently imparting orders and judgment He stands beside them in Eden, speaking to them directly. Jacob wrestles not with an angel, as is so often depicted in paintings, but with a man who looks not much different from himself. The women are uniformly Crumbian, voluptuous Earth goddesses who are both sexualized and strong-willed. (The endnotes offer a close study of the kinds of power women wielded in Genesis.) The downside of fitting all the text in is that many pages are packed tight with small panels, and too rarely—as with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah—does Crumb expand his lens and treat signature events dramatically. Even the Flood is fairly restrained, though the exodus of the animals from the Ark is beautifully detailed. The author’s respect for Genesis is admirable, but it may leave readers wishing he had taken a few more chances with his interpretation, as when he draws the serpent in the Garden of Eden as a provocative half-man/half-lizard. On the whole, though, the book is largely a tribute to Crumb’s immense talents as a draftsman and stubborn adherence to the script.
An erudite and artful, though frustratingly restrained, look at Old Testament stories.Pub Date: Oct. 19, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-393-06102-4
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2009
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