Honest, important, and timely.
A childhood beset by generations of family addiction is revealed in this raw graphic-novel memoir from a well-known children’s author and illustrator.
Though he doesn’t realize it until later, Krosoczka’s (The Principal Strikes Back, 2018, etc.) mother suffers from addiction, which brings turmoil into their family’s life. Basic needs go unmet, promises are routinely broken, and the stability and safety most take for granted are never guaranteed. Krosoczka is raised by his grandparents when his mom can no longer care for him. The contradictions prevalent in his childhood will resonate with readers who have experienced addiction and educate those who have not. Yes, there is chaos, but there is also warmth, seen, for example, when Krosoczka’s mom fakes his birthday for an impromptu party at a fast-food chain, or in the way his grandfather never misses an opportunity to tell him he is loved. Krosoczka learns self-reliance as a survival strategy. He also learns to express himself through art. The palette, awash in gray and earth tones, invokes the feeling of hazy memories. Interspersed are tender and at times heartbreaking images of real drawings and letters from the author and several family members. Krosoczka as an author generously and lovingly shows his flawed family members striving to do the best they can even as Krosoczka the character clearly aches for more.
Honest, important, and timely. (author’s note, note on the art) (Graphic novel memoir. 14-adult)Pub Date: Oct. 9, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-545-90247-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Graphix/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: June 23, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2018
SEEN & HEARD
Nothing new or revelatory here, but the book can serve as a good introduction to Jobs and will impress with its concision...
A free-wheeling graphic biography of Steve Jobs.
The late visionary behind Apple and Pixar lent himself to caricature, and illustrator Hartland (Bon Appétit: The Delicious Life of Julia Child, 2012, etc.) takes full advantage. Her inspirational version of the “insanely great” Jobs is a misfit who refused to follow the rules or play well with others, who was as rebellious as he was smart. Eventually becoming one of the richest men in the world, he followed a spiritual path of asceticism, looking for gurus, seeking a purer truth than can be found in material possessions. Yet he showed a remarkable lack of compassion and empathy toward his associates and was forced out of the Apple he had founded because others considered him so difficult. He wasn’t the computer whiz that his early collaborator Steve Wozniak was, but the marketing acumen of his passion for design and simplicity proved equally crucial in Apple’s transformation of the personal computer from a hobbyist pursuit into a paradigm-shifting commercial product. “Woz is the engineering genius,” the author writes in a kid’s scrawl that matches the rough-hewn illustrations. “Steve is the salesman with the big picture.” As she later quotes her subject, who saw Apple prosper beyond anyone’s wildest expectations, “I don’t think it would have happened without Woz and I don’t think it would have happened without me.” Recognizing his own deficiencies, Jobs recruited Pepsi’s John Sculley to run the company: “While Steve knows himself to be quirky, tactless, confrontational, and insensitive, he knows Sculley is polite, polished, and easygoing”—though inevitably, there was a power struggle between the two. The narrative somehow squeezes Jobs’ important innovations—the iMac, the music empire of iPods and iTunes, the smartphone revolution, the iPad—into a breezy narrative that engages and entertains.
Nothing new or revelatory here, but the book can serve as a good introduction to Jobs and will impress with its concision those who already know a lot about him.Pub Date: July 21, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-307-98295-7
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade/Random
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Complex even for history buffs, this one requires and merits a second read.
Italian cartoonist Tabilio and translator Schwandt breathe some new life into Marco Polo and his travels in this debut graphic novel.
Using Polo’s Il Milione as a launching pad, this fictional biography explores the Venetian traveler as much as it does his travels. Captured and imprisoned by the Genoese after the Battle of Korcula, an injured Polo awaits the negotiation of his release and meets Pisan writer Rustichello. When Polo’s fluency in the language of Cathay (a medieval name for China) sparks his curiosity, Rustichello convinces Polo to share the story that would eventually become Il Milione, with an added focus on Polo’s coming-of-age. The chronicle of Polo’s daunting travels and perilous adventures with his father and uncle takes on fantastic proportions as it intertwines with dreams, visions, and Tabilio’s transporting illustrations that are as complex in content as they are simple in style. Although it seeks to humanize the nearly mythic figure of Marco Polo, the narrative does not offer a challenge to its source material’s Western, Christian worldview, and the resulting perspective on Asia’s myriad cultures and history is awash in colonial exoticism. However, small anachronisms and metafictive comments from Rustichello invoke the many centuries of debate around Marco Polo’s travelogue, situating readers to question where his perspective might depart from truth.
Complex even for history buffs, this one requires and merits a second read. (afterword, glossary) (Graphic historical fiction. 14-adult)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5124-3069-1
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Graphic Universe
Review Posted Online: May 14, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
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