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kwagner's review
5.0
I cried as I read most of this. A unique perspective and voice in our history. A beautiful telling of horrible accounts.
braddy7's review
5.0
I have come to love the memoir graphic novel genre. This is a civil rights story told from the perspective of an Argentinian immigrant in Alabama, not white, not black, stuck somewhere in the middle.
jwinchell's review
4.0
The art here has a photojournalistic feel- Black and White, lots of cross hatching, representative of reality. The entire project is photojournalistic- her dad’s photo developing, her blow by blow narrative of her childhood during civil rights era Alabama, navigating Argentina and the US, her trip back as an adult with one of her adult children. She is grappling with race in this memoir, but I would have liked to hear how those childhood experiences with racism inform her own anti racist views now.
sducharme's review
5.0
This black and white penciled graphic memoir tells the childhood story of the author growing up in Alabama during the Civil Rights movement. I loved the style of illustration and layout of text.
giuliabrav_oh's review
5.0
Randomly found this in a thrift store in Buenos Aires and I am so glad I did. The art style is absolutely amazing. The combination of history and personal experience intertwine in a really nice way. It shows a different perspective on racism in Alabama than the black or the white experience. It felt like a nice introduction, it didn’t go super deep, but it’s also a pretty short book. I think it handled a variety of topics in a nice way. Definitely recommending this to people from now on.
saidtheraina's review
5.0
When I picked up this book, I was initially skeptical.
It's a paperback published by a university press, the cover design isn't awesome, and it's a graphic novel memoir about the southern civil rights movement from the perspective of someone who 1. has never published anything - much less a graphic novel - before, and 2. isn't Black.
Wow, were those first impressions offbase.
Quintero Weaver tells the story of her childhood immigration to Marion, Alabama from Buenos Aires, Argentina. She talks, directly, about what it was like to be a part of the only (apparent) non-white, non-black family in her community. She discusses the different effects emigration and immigration had on her and each of her sisters (as the family moved back and forth from Argentina to the United States, some of the siblings were born in South America, and others in North America). And then, she talks about what it was like to live a block away on the night that Jimmie Lee Jackson was killed during a peaceful voting rights march in 1965.
It's a chilling story.
But a story in context.
This is a story that has stuck with me - that I've found myself thinking about afterwards. As I read, I found myself grabbing paper and a pen to notate sections I wanted to remember.
For instance, page 66, Quintero Weaver describes how reading her older sister's collection of books enriched her personal education. In addition to depicting the impact of literacy, for me, it drew forth the particular quality of grabbing a print book off a shelf and reading it in secret. That experience is hard to duplicate in digital form.
On page 81, she says "Somehow daddy lacked the self-consciousness that usually comes with outsider status." This made me wonder if he truly lacked that self-consciousness, or if he refused it. Made me wonder if people attain that self-consciousness quality based on personality type, experience, nature, nurture, astrological sign, or what. When is being aware of your outsider status a benefit, and when is it a problem?
On page 94, I loved the way that she depicts a life of routine.
I wonder if being a newcomer to making comic books gives her a fresh face on sequential picture storytelling. Although I don't always think her drawing is particularly good, she does things in unexpected ways, and with a fantastic sense of emotional impact.
This book epitomizes why I value reading memoirs in graphic novel form. When writers incorporate pictures into their rendering of the past, so much value is added.
It's an important book to read. I'm so glad I read it this year.
It's a paperback published by a university press, the cover design isn't awesome, and it's a graphic novel memoir about the southern civil rights movement from the perspective of someone who 1. has never published anything - much less a graphic novel - before, and 2. isn't Black.
Wow, were those first impressions offbase.
Quintero Weaver tells the story of her childhood immigration to Marion, Alabama from Buenos Aires, Argentina. She talks, directly, about what it was like to be a part of the only (apparent) non-white, non-black family in her community. She discusses the different effects emigration and immigration had on her and each of her sisters (as the family moved back and forth from Argentina to the United States, some of the siblings were born in South America, and others in North America). And then, she talks about what it was like to live a block away on the night that Jimmie Lee Jackson was killed during a peaceful voting rights march in 1965.
It's a chilling story.
But a story in context.
This is a story that has stuck with me - that I've found myself thinking about afterwards. As I read, I found myself grabbing paper and a pen to notate sections I wanted to remember.
For instance, page 66, Quintero Weaver describes how reading her older sister's collection of books enriched her personal education. In addition to depicting the impact of literacy, for me, it drew forth the particular quality of grabbing a print book off a shelf and reading it in secret. That experience is hard to duplicate in digital form.
On page 81, she says "Somehow daddy lacked the self-consciousness that usually comes with outsider status." This made me wonder if he truly lacked that self-consciousness, or if he refused it. Made me wonder if people attain that self-consciousness quality based on personality type, experience, nature, nurture, astrological sign, or what. When is being aware of your outsider status a benefit, and when is it a problem?
On page 94, I loved the way that she depicts a life of routine.
I wonder if being a newcomer to making comic books gives her a fresh face on sequential picture storytelling. Although I don't always think her drawing is particularly good, she does things in unexpected ways, and with a fantastic sense of emotional impact.
This book epitomizes why I value reading memoirs in graphic novel form. When writers incorporate pictures into their rendering of the past, so much value is added.
It's an important book to read. I'm so glad I read it this year.
jvillanueva8's review
4.0
I would compare this to “They Called Us Enemy” in that the story is shakily reconstructed from childhood memories through an adult lens. There’s a fair amount of projection going on, and a lot of detail seems to be lost. However, the story and illustrations are wonderful.