A sweet, satisfying memoir about family bonds and finding one’s place in the world.
Picture-book author Uhlberg (A Storm Called Katrina, illus. by Colin Bootman, 2015, etc.) tells his story of growing up with Deaf parents in Depression-era Brooklyn.
Evoking a pleasant nostalgia with its strong sense of place, the episodic narrative follows Myron Uhlberg, a young, white Jewish boy, and his family from Myron’s birth to the day he leaves for college. Through anecdotes both funny and poignant, the author explores his complex relationship with his father. Forced to act as an interpreter by the age of 5, Myron feels trapped between the worlds of child and adult as well as Deaf and hearing. This dilemma leads to both humor and pain as Myron navigates the considerable responsibility. The author presents a nuanced portrayal of Deaf life. Myron’s main link to the Deaf world is his parents, but other Deaf adults make appearances, hinting at a spectrum of Deaf experiences. The author’s decision to write his Deaf parents’ speech phonetically could be prejudicial for readers who lack further context, and there is the occasional biased cliché of disability and culture (due to their deafness, he claims his parents’ sole source of entertainment is books; seeing a friend in an iron lung causes him to reassess his self-pity). Additionally, in contrast to the author’s first memoir, Hands of My Father (2009), published for adults, the title of this adaptation feels like a trite appeal to hearing readers. However, the warmth, love, and playfulness of the narrative prevail.
A sweet, satisfying memoir about family bonds and finding one’s place in the world. (Memoir. 9-14)Pub Date: May 1, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-8075-3146-4
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Whitman
Review Posted Online: March 2, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2019
A retro yet timeless story of family and identity.
Martín brings his successful Mexikid Stories online comic series to print.
Living in California’s Central Coast as a first-generation Mexican American, Pedro (or the “American-style” Peter) struggles to find his place. As an American kid growing up in the 1970s, he loves Star Wars and Happy Days but dislikes the way his five oldest siblings, who were born in Mexico, make him feel less Mexican just because he and the three other younger siblings were born after his parents immigrated to the U.S. to work picking strawberries. A family trip to Jalisco to bring their abuelito back to California to live with them presents Pedro with an opportunity to get in touch with his roots and learn more about the places his family calls home. Told from Pedro’s perspective, the panels read as a stream-of-consciousness travelogue as he regales readers with his adventures from the road. Along the way, Pedro has fresh encounters with Mexican culture and experiences some unexpected side quests. Full of humor, heart, and a decent amount of gross-out moments, Martín’s coming-of-age memoir hits all the right notes. Though the family’s travels took place decades ago, the struggles with establishing identity, especially as a child of immigrants whose identity straddles two cultures, feel as current as ever. The vibrant, action-packed panels offer plentiful details for readers to pore over, from scenes of crowded family chaos to the sights of Mexico.
A retro yet timeless story of family and identity. (family photos, author’s note) (Graphic memoir. 9-14)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2023
ISBN: 9780593462287
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: June 8, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
A rich and deeply felt slice of life.
Crafting fantasy worlds offers a budding middle school author relief and distraction from the real one in this graphic memoir debut.
Everyone in Tori’s life shows realistic mixes of vulnerability and self-knowledge while, equally realistically, seeming to be making it up as they go. At least, as she shuttles between angrily divorced parents—dad becoming steadily harder to reach, overstressed mom spectacularly incapable of reading her offspring—or drifts through one wearingly dull class after another, she has both vivacious bestie Taylor Lee and, promisingly, new classmate Nick as well as the (all-girl) heroic fantasy, complete with portals, crystal amulets, and evil enchantments, taking shape in her mind and on paper. The flow of school projects, sleepovers, heart-to-heart conversations with Taylor, and like incidents (including a scene involving Tori’s older brother, who is having a rough adolescence, that could be seen as domestic violence) turns to a tide of change as eighth grade winds down and brings unwelcome revelations about friends. At least the story remains as solace and, at the close, a sense that there are still chapters to come in both worlds. Working in a simple, expressive cartoon style reminiscent of Raina Telgemeier’s, Sharp captures facial and body language with easy naturalism. Most people in the spacious, tidily arranged panels are White; Taylor appears East Asian, and there is diversity in background characters.
A rich and deeply felt slice of life. (afterword, design notes) (Graphic memoir. 10-13)Pub Date: May 18, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-316-53889-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2021
PERSPECTIVES
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