A touching graphic novel about a simple family caught up in a civil war that’s hampered by odd illustrative choices.
Khatri offers a graphic novel about the human costs of the Nepali civil war, illustrated by Santra and Lilamani.
The story in this work is quite simple, but it’s posed in a setting that will be unfamiliar to many readers: a conflict that flamed to life when Maoist rebels revolted against the Nepalese government in 1996. As the story opens in 2009, a young Nepalese woman named Tara is returning to her family’s village after being driven from her home four years ago by the expansion of the war. As she walks around the old home, the action flashes back to her past life there with her family of simple farmers: her father, Punya; her mother, Dhanamaya; her younger sister, Maya; and her older brother, Sudeep. They grow their crops, tend to their livestock, and take no part in the politics roiling outside their peaceful valley. “All we had was each other,” the narration goes, “and we were happy.” This happiness is gradually darkened by the nearby carnage, particularly after a failed cease-fire in 2003. Tara’s father is told that the Maoists want him to rebel against his landlord by refusing to farm his lands despite Punya’s protests that he needs his crops to feed his family. In 2004, revolutionary soldiers come to the farmhouse seeking shelter, which puts the family’s safety in further jeopardy. Khatri’s decision to keep the action to a minimum and the scope of her story local is a wise one; it encourages the reader to focus on the human face of the conflict and the effect of war on civilians. Another decision is less effective: The illustrations in the graphic novel’s first half by Santra are almost childlike in their simplicity, whereas the second half, drawn mainly in black-and-white by Lilamani, tells the exact same story with more photorealistic flair, which tends to draw attention to the artwork and away from the emotional impact of the events; a single artist would have been more effective.
A touching graphic novel about a simple family caught up in a civil war that’s hampered by odd illustrative choices.Pub Date: April 15, 2023
ISBN: 9781737755227
Page Count: 88
Publisher: Restart Publishing
Review Posted Online: Jan. 30, 2023
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PERSPECTIVES
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs.
The Heffley family’s house undergoes a disastrous attempt at home improvement.
When Great Aunt Reba dies, she leaves some money to the family. Greg’s mom calls a family meeting to determine what to do with their share, proposing home improvements and then overruling the family’s cartoonish wish lists and instead pushing for an addition to the kitchen. Before bringing in the construction crew, the Heffleys attempt to do minor maintenance and repairs themselves—during which Greg fails at the work in various slapstick scenes. Once the professionals are brought in, the problems keep getting worse: angry neighbors, terrifying problems in walls, and—most serious—civil permitting issues that put the kibosh on what work’s been done. Left with only enough inheritance to patch and repair the exterior of the house—and with the school’s dismal standardized test scores as a final straw—Greg’s mom steers the family toward moving, opening up house-hunting and house-selling storylines (and devastating loyal Rowley, who doesn’t want to lose his best friend). While Greg’s positive about the move, he’s not completely uncaring about Rowley’s action. (And of course, Greg himself is not as unaffected as he wishes.) The gags include effectively placed callbacks to seemingly incidental events (the “stress lizard” brought in on testing day is particularly funny) and a lampoon of after-school-special–style problem books. Just when it seems that the Heffleys really will move, a new sequence of chaotic trouble and property destruction heralds a return to the status quo. Whew.
Readers can still rely on this series to bring laughs. (Graphic/fiction hybrid. 8-12)Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-4197-3903-3
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Amulet/Abrams
Review Posted Online: Nov. 18, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
More trampling in the vineyards of the Literary Classics section, with results that will tickle fancies high and low.
Recasting Dog Man and his feline ward, Li’l Petey, as costumed superheroes, Pilkey looks East of Eden in this follow-up to Tale of Two Kitties (2017).
The Steinbeck novel’s Cain/Abel motif gets some play here, as Petey, “world’s evilest cat” and cloned Li’l Petey’s original, tries assiduously to tempt his angelic counterpart over to the dark side only to be met, ultimately at least, by Li’l Petey’s “Thou mayest.” (There are also occasional direct quotes from the novel.) But inner struggles between good and evil assume distinctly subordinate roles to riotous outer ones, as Petey repurposes robots built for a movie about the exploits of Dog Man—“the thinking man’s Rin Tin Tin”—while leading a general rush to the studio’s costume department for appropriate good guy/bad guy outfits in preparation for the climactic battle. During said battle and along the way Pilkey tucks in multiple Flip-O-Rama inserts as well as general gags. He lists no fewer than nine ways to ask “who cut the cheese?” and includes both punny chapter titles (“The Bark Knight Rises”) and nods to Hamiltonand Mary Poppins. The cartoon art, neatly and brightly colored by Garibaldi, is both as easy to read as the snappy dialogue and properly endowed with outsized sound effects, figures displaying a range of skin colors, and glimpses of underwear (even on robots).
More trampling in the vineyards of the Literary Classics section, with results that will tickle fancies high and low. (drawing instructions) (Graphic fantasy. 7-10)Pub Date: Dec. 26, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-545-93518-0
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Graphix/Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 13, 2018
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