An effective adaptation, still relevant and likely to find a fresh audience.
In this graphic version of Gratz’s bestselling 2017 novel, three groups of refugees in different eras face bitter hardship and persecution in the course of desperate searches for safety.
Set respectively in 1938, 1994, and 2015, the accounts involve a passenger ship full of German Jews, a thrown-together group of Cubans on a leaky boat, and a bombed-out Syrian family striking out for the E.U. The original novel folded in actual experiences and, in some cases, real people, unspooling three storylines in short, interleaved chapters; this new edition preserves that structure. It’s a tossup whether the change in format offers any real advantages. On the one hand, actually seeing expressively posed characters and the period details around them brings both the cast and the settings sharply to life, moments of crisis and terror have cinematic impact, and racial and cultural differences remain strongly present. On the other, though, because the graphic “chapters” are only three to five pages each, and all the art is done in a similar style and palette, the dozens of switches from one storyline to the next come with dizzying frequency and can’t help but impede the narrative flow. Still, after skillfully interweaving his three powerful stories together at their ends, the author urgently invites readers to contemplate their contrasts, parallels, and ever-cogent common themes.
An effective adaptation, still relevant and likely to find a fresh audience. (afterword) (Graphic historical fiction. 10-13)Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9781338733969
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Graphix/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: July 4, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2025
Compulsively readable; morally uncomfortable.
Six New Jersey 12-year-olds separated by decades race to ensure the “good guys” win World War II in this middle-grade work by the author of The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and her brother, a children's author and journalist.
It all starts with a ham radio that Alice, Lawrence, and Artie fool around with in 1944 and Henry, Frances, and Lukas find in 2023. It’s late April, and the 1944 kids worry about loved ones in combat, while the 2023 kids study the war in school. When, impossibly, the radio allows the kids to communicate across time, it doesn’t take long before they share information that changes history. Can the two sets of kids work across a 79-year divide to prevent the U.S.A. from becoming the Nazi-controlled dystopia of Westfallen? This propulsive thriller includes well-paced cuts between times that keep the pages turning. Like most people in their small New Jersey town, Alice, Artie, and Frances are white. In 1944, Lawrence, who’s Black, endures bigotry; in the U.S.A. of 2023, Henry’s biracial (white and Black) identity and Lukas’ Jewish one are unremarkable, but in Westfallen, Henry’s a “mischling” doing “work-learning,” and Lukas is a menial laborer. Alice’s and Henry’s dual first-person narration zooms in on the adventure, but readers who pull back may find themselves deeply uneasy with the summary consideration paid to the real-life fates of European Jews and disabled people. The cliffhanger ending will have them hoping for more thoughtful treatment in sequels to come.
Compulsively readable; morally uncomfortable. (Science fiction/thriller. 10-13)Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2024
ISBN: 9781665950817
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: June 15, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2024
Problem-solving through perseverance and friendship is the real win in this deeply smart and inspiring story.
Leaving Brooklyn behind, Black math-whiz and puzzle lover Bree starts a new life in Florida, where she’ll be tossed into the deep end in more ways than one. Keeping her head above water may be the trickiest puzzle yet.
While her dad is busy working and training in IT, Bree struggles at first to settle into Enith Brigitha Middle School, largely due to the school’s preoccupation with swimming—from the accomplishments of its namesake, a Black Olympian from Curaçao, to its near victory at the state swimming championships. But Bree can’t swim. To illustrate her anxiety around this fact, the graphic novel’s bright colors give way to gray thought bubbles with thick, darkened outlines expressing Bree’s deepest fears and doubts. This poignant visual crowds some panels just as anxious feelings can crowd the thoughts of otherwise star students like Bree. Ultimately, learning to swim turns out to be easy enough with the help of a kind older neighbor—a Black woman with a competitive swimming past of her own as well as a rich and bittersweet understanding of Black Americans’ relationship with swimming—who explains to Bree how racist obstacles of the past can become collective anxiety in the present. To her surprise, Bree, with her newfound water skills, eventually finds herself on the school’s swim team, navigating competition, her anxiety, and new, meaningful relationships.
Problem-solving through perseverance and friendship is the real win in this deeply smart and inspiring story. (Graphic fiction. 10-13)Pub Date: May 17, 2022
ISBN: 978-0-06-305677-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: HarperAlley
Review Posted Online: March 1, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2022
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