Reviews tagging 'Child death'

Maus: Povest preživelog. I, Moj otac krvari istoriju by Art Spiegelman

63 reviews

cstein's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional funny informative lighthearted reflective sad fast-paced

4.25

Spiegelman's decision to draw rather than merely write this memoir importantly limits the reader's imagination, leaving drastically less room for confusion, wrong interpretation, or willful ignorance of the facts of his and his father's experiences. In a similarly ingenious way, Spiegelman's cartoon animal characters provide sufficient whimsy and distance from the horrors of the Holocaust to make the work readable, while also prompting frequent pauses to reflect on how the emotions and horrors experienced by these cartoon animals are actually those experienced by very much non-cartoon people. Phew.

As the Newsweek review of this work reads, in part, "Maus compels us to bear witness in a different way: the very artificiality of its surface makes it possible to imagine the reality beneath." 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Antisemitism, Death, Confinement, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Suicide, Child death, and Murder

Moderate: Violence, Blood, Chronic illness, Deportation, Genocide, Cursing, Forced institutionalization, Gore, Grief, Gun violence, Hate crime, Mental illness, and Physical abuse

Minor: Racial slurs, Racism, War, Vomit, and Excrement

dumaurier's review against another edition

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Dementia, War, Violence, Child death, and Antisemitism

daniellekat's review against another edition

challenging emotional sad fast-paced

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Genocide, and Violence

Moderate: Death of parent and Child death

Minor: Suicide

stardustdreamer's review against another edition

dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Antisemitism, Violence, Suicide, Hate crime, War, Suicidal thoughts, Genocide, Grief, Death of parent, Child death, and Death

Minor: Trafficking and Cursing

marinapetal's review against another edition

dark emotional sad fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Child death, Antisemitism, Violence, Torture, Suicide attempt, Suicide, Suicidal thoughts, Physical abuse, Genocide, Death of parent, Death, Confinement, and Child abuse

madison1239's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense fast-paced

4.25

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Antisemitism, War, Death of parent, Genocide, Grief, Murder, Police brutality, Racism, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Suicide attempt, and Violence

Moderate: Child death and Death

marissasa's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional informative reflective sad tense fast-paced

5.0

This graphic novel is hard-hitting, emotional, and complex in every way. The Holocaust is always a hard topic to read about, and yet the comic format with Jewish people represented as mice, Polish people as pigs, and German people as cats presents a true narrative of a Jewish family's survival in a way that makes the atrocities they faced seem just as horrific as they were, but somehow also more digestible and readable. I very much admire Art Spiegelman's artistic choice to include imagery of himself at the present time of interviewing his father and the discussions they had about the experiences he would eventually turn into a comic, making the comic meta while also giving a chance to see what his father was like in the present in comparison to how he was in the past while living through life in Poland. The art itself is haunting but brilliantly done, filled with details and expressions of fear, surprise, grief, and more that you wouldn't expect to come across as emotional as they do when depicted on mice. I was interested in reading this book ever since I heard it made its way onto banned books list in America, and I am glad I read it because I now know how important a piece of work like this is in preserving history and personal accounts of the Holocaust, and how its uniqueness in presentation allowed discussions around the crimes of Nazi Germany to be more easily accessible and held especially among children just learning the history today.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicidal thoughts, Cancer, Child abuse, Death, Death of parent, Murder, Slavery, Suicide, Vomit, War, Antisemitism, Genocide, Hate crime, Mental illness, Police brutality, Violence, Child death, Confinement, Grief, Religious bigotry, Self harm, Terminal illness, and Torture

srm's review against another edition

dark emotional informative sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Antisemitism, Suicide, and Genocide

Moderate: Child death, Death, Racial slurs, War, Death of parent, and Religious bigotry

steveatwaywords's review against another edition

dark emotional informative sad tense fast-paced

4.75

What can I add to Maus which has not already been said? Long on my TBR list, the recent nonsense around its censorship (and Spiegelman's excellent retorts) simply moved it to the top.

As many have said, if I have any criticism it is in the work's brevity. It is the nature of the memoir and the storytelling of his father, perhaps, that the waiting, the agonies, and the uncertainties are glossed over with a few waves of the verbal hand. This is part of the realism of the telling, and I embrace it. At the same time, there is more to know. At its best, for any who may not easily have found access to this vital history (for whatever reason), Maus succeeds, with enough of the smaller details (the attitudes of the Poles and many of the Jews, of the younger Jewish generations (narrator included) and of the privileged who hope to buy their way out of the horrors before the) to demand readers find more.

The Holocaust and surrounding environs are too easily found on the glib lips of politicians wishing to score hyperbolic points these days. Maus, when it is permitted to be read, might ground us again. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death, Violence, and Child death

adina_zeling's review against another edition

dark emotional funny sad fast-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Self harm, Antisemitism, Death, and Genocide

Moderate: War and Child death