Engaging feminist history attractively presented.
A graphic nonfiction account of how early 20th-century British suffragettes used jujitsu to literally fight for the vote.
Focusing on Edith Garrud, who co-owned a dojo in London with her husband, William, the book tells the little-known story of how a subset of activist women agitating for women’s suffrage were trained in jujitsu. They used martial arts to cope with the violence and police brutality they encountered while peacefully marching and assembling. Garrud taught self-defense to the Bodyguard unit, a group affiliated with Emmeline Pankhurst’s Women’s Social and Political Union. The colorful panels illustrating the action are dynamic and engaging, expressing energy, speed, and noise. Compelling historical illustrations and photographs are interspersed. The dialogue, which imparts background context, is mostly snappy but occasionally too obviously didactic. The book chronicles the several years leading up to the dramatic 1914 Battle of Glasgow, when suffragettes fought Scottish police who were trying to arrest Pankhurst. The narrative also offers important detours into the prevalence and general societal acceptance of domestic violence as well as schisms within the suffragette movement regarding the most effective and politically palatable tactics. Scenes between Garrud and her husband provide insights into their marital and work lives. One line confusingly implies that Japan was colonized, and the book disappointingly includes no sources. However, a foreword by scholar Elsa Dorlin and helpful backmatter, including a timeline and historical notes, add useful information.
Engaging feminist history attractively presented. (illustration and photo credits) (Graphic nonfiction. 12-18)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2023
ISBN: 9798765607473
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Graphic Universe
Review Posted Online: May 24, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2023
PERSPECTIVES
A tribute to young people’s resistance in the face of oppression.
In 1983 South Korea, Kim was learning to navigate university and student political activism.
The daughter of modest restaurant owners, Kim was apolitical—she just wanted to make her parents proud and be worthy of her tuition expenses. Following an administrator’s advice to avoid trouble and pursue extracurriculars, she joined a folk dance team where she met a fellow student who invited her into a banned book club. Kim was fearful at first, but her thirst for knowledge soon won out. As she learned the truth of her country’s oppressive fascist political environment, Kim became closer to the other book club members while the authorities grew increasingly desperate to identify and punish student dissidents. The kinetic manhwa drawing style skillfully captures the personal and political history of this eye-opening memoir. The disturbing elements of political corruption and loss of human rights are lightened by moving depictions of sweet, funny moments between friends as well as deft political maneuvering by Kim herself when she was eventually questioned by authorities. The art and dialogue complement each other as they express the tension that Kim and her friends felt as they tried to balance school, family, and romance with surviving in a dangerous political environment. References to fake news and a divisive government make this particularly timely; the only thing missing is a list for further reading.
A tribute to young people’s resistance in the face of oppression. (Graphic memoir. 14-adult)Pub Date: May 19, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-945820-42-7
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Iron Circus Comics
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
A truth-is-stranger-than-fiction story about a lost soul finding her way.
Navigating high school is hard enough, let alone when your parents are CIA spies.
In this graphic memoir, U.S. citizen Glock shares the remarkable story of a childhood spent moving from country to country; abiding by strange, secretive rules; and the mystery of her parents’ occupations. By the time she reaches high school in an unspecified Central American nation—the sixth country she’s lived in—she’s begun to feel the weight of isolation and secrecy. After stealing a peek at a letter home to her parents from her older sister, who is attending college in the States, the pieces begin to fall into place. Normal teenage exploration and risk-taking, such as sneaking out to parties and flirtations with boys, feel different when you live and go to school behind locked gates and kidnapping is a real risk. This story, which was vetted by the CIA, follows the author from childhood to her eventual return to a home country that in many ways feels foreign. It considers the emotional impact of familial secrets and growing up between cultures. The soft illustrations in a palette of grays and peaches lend a nostalgic air, and Glock’s expressive faces speak volumes. This is a quiet, contemplative story that will leave readers yearning to know more and wondering what intriguing details were, of necessity, edited out. Glock and many classmates at her American school read as White; other characters are Central American locals.
A truth-is-stranger-than-fiction story about a lost soul finding her way. (Graphic memoir. 13-18)Pub Date: Nov. 30, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-316-45898-6
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: June 10, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2021
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