This is another graphic novel for tweens and older, but unlike Marzi, a memoir, War Brothers is a fictionalized account of real events that have occurred in contemporary Uganda. War Brothers is about the fates of four friends as they fall under the domination of Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army. The LRA fills its ranks with kidnapped children who are tortured and traumatized until they either die or become child soldiers for Kony, who thinks of himself as some sort of anointed representative […]
A 10-Year-Old’s View of Life Behind the Iron Curtain
This 2011 graphic novel, which is kid-friendly, is Marzena Sowa’s memoir of childhood in Poland in the 1980’s, the time of Lech Walesa, Solidarity, Pope John Paul II, Chernobyl, and the ordinary every day life of a 10 year old. It’s beautifully told with humor, sadness, and ultimately optimism. I think tweens would identify with Marzi’s hopes, joys and frustrations, while also getting an education about life behind the Iron Curtain just before it started to fall. In many ways, Marzi is a fairly typical […]
The Victim’s Name Was Musa
My brother’s name was Musa. He had a name. But he’ll remain ‘the Arab’ forever. Albert Camus’ The Stranger, published in 1942, is a literary classic about one man’s existential crisis. The action of the novel takes place in Algeria under French colonial rule and the narrator, Meursault, is a Frenchman who has murdered an Arab. In The Meursault Investigation, Algerian journalist Kamel Daoud imagines the same story as told by the victim’s brother. The result is a powerful and insightful tale of the destructive […]
Book Exchange — Thanks Badkittyuno!!
Thank you, Badkittyuno, for filling in a significant gap in my library! Sad but true, in my many decades on the planet, I have not read ANY Mark Twain or Isabel Allende. I can’t wait to get started on these. And I love the page markers. Thanks!