An utterly unforgettable, achingly honest, and spectacularly crafted graphic memoir.
Nayberg revisits her 1980s Soviet childhood in Kyiv, detailing how a nuclear disaster and daily indignities shaped her coming-of-age as an artist.
It’s 1986, and 11-year-old Genya has finally grown a long braid and dreams of attending art school―and the Chernobyl reactor explodes. Nayberg peppers her deeply personal narrative with vivid historical details that immerse readers in her world: the Volga River contaminated by wartime bomb craters, the unofficial quota limiting Jewish students like Genya’s enrollment at art school, government surveillance forcing the people to keep their phone conversations deliberately vague, official radio transmissions insisting that “the situation is under control” even as families panic in private. Nayberg’s watercolor and collage art brilliantly mirrors Genya’s emotional landscape—varied panel layouts with muted earth tones and expressive faces capture her day-to-day life navigating school, family, and friendships, while scratchy, anxious black compositions mark moments of conflict; a hopeful double-page cityscape in luminous oranges and pinks offers a stunning visual pause that suggests possibility beyond Genya’s current constraints. Nayberg’s depictions of her mother—alternately manipulative, uncaring, or fiercely protective—and of friend dynamics feel wholly authentic, while the portrayal of Soviet-era antisemitism, environmental catastrophe, and casual cruelties never overwhelms the intimate story of a girl finding her voice through art amid chaos.
An utterly unforgettable, achingly honest, and spectacularly crafted graphic memoir. (author’s note) (Graphic memoir. 10-14)Pub Date: April 14, 2025
ISBN: 9780823460588
Page Count: 144
Publisher: Neal Porter/Holiday House
Review Posted Online: Nov. 22, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
A breezy, bustling bucketful of courageous acts and eye-popping feats.
Why should grown-ups get all the historical, scientific, athletic, cinematic, and artistic glory?
Choosing exemplars from both past and present, Mitchell includes but goes well beyond Alexander the Great, Anne Frank, and like usual suspects to introduce a host of lesser-known luminaries. These include Shapur II, who was formally crowned king of Persia before he was born, Indian dancer/professional architect Sheila Sri Prakash, transgender spokesperson Jazz Jennings, inventor Param Jaggi, and an international host of other teen or preteen activists and prodigies. The individual portraits range from one paragraph to several pages in length, and they are interspersed with group tributes to, for instance, the Nazi-resisting “Swingkinder,” the striking New York City newsboys, and the marchers of the Birmingham Children’s Crusade. Mitchell even offers would-be villains a role model in Elagabalus, “boy emperor of Rome,” though she notes that he, at least, came to an awful end: “Then, then! They dumped his remains in the Tiber River, to be nommed by fish for all eternity.” The entries are arranged in no evident order, and though the backmatter includes multiple booklists, a personality quiz, a glossary, and even a quick Braille primer (with Braille jokes to decode), there is no index. Still, for readers whose fires need lighting, there’s motivational kindling on nearly every page.
A breezy, bustling bucketful of courageous acts and eye-popping feats. (finished illustrations not seen) (Collective biography. 10-13)Pub Date: May 10, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-14-751813-2
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Puffin
Review Posted Online: Nov. 10, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2015
A tragic, gripping, and inspiring story.
In 1979, 11-year-old Norman was the only survivor of a plane crash in Southern California: This is his true story.
This book for middle-grade readers, co-authored with Kiely, covers much of the same material as Ollestad’s 2009 memoir for adults, Crazy for the Storm. Flying in a four-seater Cessna with his father, his father’s girlfriend, Sandra, and the pilot, Norman was excited to reach Big Bear to receive his ski-racing trophy. (As a vivid example of his busy childhood, they’d driven the 300 miles there yesterday for Norman to compete—and then driven back to Topanga Canyon in the evening for his hockey game.) But the plane tragically crashed on a mountain in a blizzard. Nothing is sugarcoated; readers encounter graphic descriptions of the pilot and Norman’s dad, who died, and Sandra, who suffered a gaping head wound. Eventually accepting that he had to figure things out on his own, Norman drew upon the extreme training his father had put his “Boy Wonder” through—training that had bullied Norman into facing difficult physical and mental challenges that he feared and resented. During his trek to safety, Norman performed incredible mental and physical feats and encouraged the barely functioning Sandra—until she fell to her death. Norman’s conflicted feelings about the father he’d both idolized and resented are nuanced and satisfyingly resolved. Readers who enjoy nail-biting wilderness stories will be riveted.
A tragic, gripping, and inspiring story. (Nonfiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Oct. 28, 2025
ISBN: 9780374392611
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
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