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A review by shipwrecksteph
I Survived the Sinking of the Titanic, 1912: The Graphic Novel by Georgia Ball, Lauren Tarshis
3.0
I received an ARC at NYCC 2019. Many thanks to Graphix and Scholastic for the copy. The version I reviewed was incomplete. The second half wasn’t colored yet and some graphics were temporary.
I’ll start by going on record that I love the idea of using graphic novels to teach. And historical non-fiction is one of the best subjects to tackle. This one does a good job handling such a dire theme for a younger age group. Adults will see where things are glossed over. But the story should connect with a younger audience pretty well.
There is a lot of really good layout in this book. One spread in particular really gave a good sense of scale to the disaster. But the artwork is all over the place. The color may have been half finished in my copy, but in standard comic production, the linework is done by this point. Which means the inconsistent faces have nothing to do with its work-in-progress status. And it is really all over the place. There are characters I didn’t recognize from page to page because their faces, hair and clothes change completely. A more experienced reader can connect the dots by knowing that 4 different white ladies with red hair have not been introduced at random moments. Rather the aunt has simply changed clothes for a new scene. But it’s easy to see this would cause problems for any number of readers.
There’s also some really clunky, on the nose dialog. I understand the need to be clear in writing for middle grade. But even 10 year old me would have thrown the book across the room if one more person said “Nothing can sink the Titanic!”. I didn’t appreciate this sort of talking down when I was young and I’m disappointed to see it survives in new books today.
My grade for this was hovering at a 2.5 and I wasn’t sure where to rate it. The discussion questions at the end convinced me to round up. They were really pointed and brought up tough subjects. The tragedy of this event really hits when you read that a character that survived in the book died in real life. Other questions do a very good job of covering things like hubris, ego and unfettered capitalism (even if they don't use those exact words).
This is far from my favorite example of graphic non-fiction I’ve read recently. And frankly the subject of the Titanic seems over covered. But if it must be covered, then this isn’t a bad way to start to conversation.
I’ll start by going on record that I love the idea of using graphic novels to teach. And historical non-fiction is one of the best subjects to tackle. This one does a good job handling such a dire theme for a younger age group. Adults will see where things are glossed over. But the story should connect with a younger audience pretty well.
There is a lot of really good layout in this book. One spread in particular really gave a good sense of scale to the disaster. But the artwork is all over the place. The color may have been half finished in my copy, but in standard comic production, the linework is done by this point. Which means the inconsistent faces have nothing to do with its work-in-progress status. And it is really all over the place. There are characters I didn’t recognize from page to page because their faces, hair and clothes change completely. A more experienced reader can connect the dots by knowing that 4 different white ladies with red hair have not been introduced at random moments. Rather the aunt has simply changed clothes for a new scene. But it’s easy to see this would cause problems for any number of readers.
There’s also some really clunky, on the nose dialog. I understand the need to be clear in writing for middle grade. But even 10 year old me would have thrown the book across the room if one more person said “Nothing can sink the Titanic!”. I didn’t appreciate this sort of talking down when I was young and I’m disappointed to see it survives in new books today.
My grade for this was hovering at a 2.5 and I wasn’t sure where to rate it. The discussion questions at the end convinced me to round up. They were really pointed and brought up tough subjects. The tragedy of this event really hits when you read that a character that survived in the book died in real life. Other questions do a very good job of covering things like hubris, ego and unfettered capitalism (even if they don't use those exact words).
This is far from my favorite example of graphic non-fiction I’ve read recently. And frankly the subject of the Titanic seems over covered. But if it must be covered, then this isn’t a bad way to start to conversation.