SANTIAGO!

The childhood antics and later achievements of Nobel Prize–winning Spanish neuroscientist Santiago Ramón y Cajal (1852-1934) are given an engaging graphic-novel treatment.

As children, Santiago and his younger brother, Pedro, skipped school and were added to their town’s official list of troublemakers. Their strict doctor father, who came from a background of hardship, was intent on Santiago’s following him into a stable career in medicine. Though he was forbidden to pursue art, his true passion, Santiago stubbornly refused to give up on it, even when he was sent away to a brutal Catholic school. There, Santiago found plenty of opportunities for mischief, even building and firing a cannon, which landed him in jail. Eventually his path did lead him to medical school, and his enduring love for art paid off when he illustrated in groundbreaking work how the brain’s nerve cells are organized. The skills Santiago cultivated during his misspent youth allowed him to achieve greatness in the field of neuroscience. His wild antics are depicted in humorous detail in illustrations that bring the historical setting to life. Slapstick humor and stylized, exaggerated representations of an impish Santiago contribute to the story’s liveliness and fast pace. Extensive, detailed source notes show how much research went into the work and indicate which elements are based on fact and which Hosler imagined to fill in the narrative.

Scientific discoveries spring to life in this action-packed graphic novel.