Hey everyone! So, I went to my school library, and I found the librarian stacking books into the graphic novel shelf, and a ton of them were copies of Maus: A Survivor’s Tale by Art Spiegelman. I was a bit intrigued of the book, as I had heard of it when I was in 7th Grade, knowing that it was banned from many librairies, mainly because it was about the Holocaust and contained some nudity in the book. I was reluctant to read it first, since those types of books, I knew, keep me up at night. But I decided to put some faith into the first volume of Maus, checked it out, and read it.
And I have to say, I don’t know why ANYONE would ban such a GOOD, AWESOME BOOK.
So I bought the second volume, which was also TERRIFIC. I really want other people to read this book, so I made this book review. And don’t worry about the Kid Icarus Explained: Suited and Rebooted series for now, the next part of that series is going to come out next week!
WARNING: THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SUGGESTIVE THEMES AND OTHER SAD AND SCARY STUFF. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
The book first opens up with a ten year-old Artie (the book’s author) skating with his friends Howie and Steve. When little Artie’s skate comes loose, Howie and Steve simply call him a “rotten egg” and skate away without him. After coming back home, crying, he talks to his dad, a Jew who speaks broken English, who responds with “Friends? Your friends? If you lock them together in a room with no food for a week, then you could see what it is, friends!”
20 years later, a now adult Artie visits his father again, who he hasn’t talked to in years, mainly after his mother’s suicide 10 years before. Now, Artie’s father, named Vladek, was married to another woman, named Mala, whose also Jewish (as is Artie himself), who Vladek has an unhealthy relationship with. Since Vladek is a survivor of the Holocaust, the infamous genocide of an estimated amount of six million jews that took place in World War Two, Artie wants to make a book about his experiences.
So we are taken back into the year 1937, where we see a young Vladek, a textiles worker, that meets a girl named Lucia Greenburg, who he eventually dumps for another girl named Anja, who later becomes Artie’s mother. Anja and Vladek soon marry and have a baby boy named Richieu. Anja then has a breakdown that lasts for several days after giving birth, which then Vladek has to take her to Czechoslovakia (now currently the Czech Republic and Slovakia respectively) to get therapy. The only problem? It’s taken over by the Nazis.
After the therapy, Vladek’s troubles in the 1940s seem to increase, such as him enlisting for the army and becoming a prisoner of war. Meanwhile, in the present, the conflict between Artie and Vladek steadies, but will Artie’s father accept the new reality he’s living in, without his beloved wife and his past shattered?
What will happen next? Read Maus: A Survivor’s Tale by Art Spiegelman to find out!
Just a quick reminder in this story: Maus is a true story. All of its pages show what actually happened during Vladek’s life and Artie’s conflict with him. The graphics make a good use of metaphor in the book, with every person being drawn as a specific animal. For example: the Jews in the book are portrayed as mice, the Germans as cats, the Polish as pigs, the Czechoslovakians as rabbits, and the Americans as dogs to name a few. The author did this to show how the Holocaust was a bit of a “cat and mouse chase”, and the way how the way how the Nazis portrayed Jews as vermin (mice) during the Holocaust.
This book, despite it being a graphic novel, has very suggestive themes. It has many swear words, morbid pictures, and even shows little specks of nudity in some panels, which is why this book got banned. I’d recommend it for young adults, but mainly for the older ones that are about 14 or so. And if you’re 10 or younger, you DEFINITELY shouldn’t read this book.
Happy reading!
– Nova S