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A review by misterbelcher
Paracuellos by Carlos Gimenez
3.0
Gimenez offers a great story as you are able to see the point of view of children lives after the Spanish Civil War. The thing I truly enjoyed about this graphic novel was that you don't need to be extremely educated on the history of the war. However, it was still a difficult read and presents many difficult themes and ideas to be discussed. I would say that I enjoyed this book overall but I had a hard time trying to grasp what was happening, as the texts, as well as images, are all telling so much.
Since this is a young adult novel, it is maybe assumed that this would be an easy read for younger people. However, I do not feel that way. This text should belong in an upper level high school class, maybe around 11th or 12th grade. Why? Because this story has a lot of information packed in and is quite dense. I myself had to read it twice to feel comfortable with what was going on. There are different characters to follow, various stories being told, and you have to really analyze the images as much as the text. I could see how this novel would be difficult to use in a classroom. Not to mention, the ideas and themes would be quite hard to discuss in a classroom. The lives of children following a war who are being neglected and essentially abused is a challenging thing to discuss with a younger audience.
Since this is a young adult novel, it is maybe assumed that this would be an easy read for younger people. However, I do not feel that way. This text should belong in an upper level high school class, maybe around 11th or 12th grade. Why? Because this story has a lot of information packed in and is quite dense. I myself had to read it twice to feel comfortable with what was going on. There are different characters to follow, various stories being told, and you have to really analyze the images as much as the text. I could see how this novel would be difficult to use in a classroom. Not to mention, the ideas and themes would be quite hard to discuss in a classroom. The lives of children following a war who are being neglected and essentially abused is a challenging thing to discuss with a younger audience.