“Tunnels,” by Rutu Modan

“Tunnels.” Written and illustrated by Rutu Modan. Translated from the Hebrew by Ishai Mishory. Drawn and Quarterly, $29.95. November 2021. 284 pp. Teen to adult (but my 9 and 12 year olds loved it).

Disclosure: I received a free review copy of this book from Drawn and Quarterly.

Thanks to Fables Books, 215 South Main Street in downtown Goshen, Indiana, for providing Commons Comics with books to review.

Check Fables out online at www.fablesbooks.com, order over the phone at 574-534-1984, or email at fablesbooks@gmail.com.

“[W]e are all stuck here in this small piece of land,” said comics artist Rutu Modan in a recent CBC interview, when asked about the fraught location of her home country Israel. “Basically, we have the same target. I believe that most of the people living here want to live happily ever after. But the interpretation of the way to go there, to get to this perfect future, the ways are really different.”

Modan has never been one to shy away from difficult questions, but she doesn’t take herself too seriously, either—keep an eye out for a cow jumping over the moon in her most recent book, “Tunnels.” The romance and intrigue that Modan works into all of her comics (such as “The Property“) are never merely superficial plot devices, but a means to delve deeper. Modan’s newest story tunnels its own elliptical, surprising, and delightful narrative path as readers follow her rich, complex characters around and within their difficult, contested setting. Continue reading ““Tunnels,” by Rutu Modan”

“The Golden Age: Book One,” by Roxanne Moreil and Cyril Pedrosa.

“The Golden Age: Book One.” By Roxanne Moreil and Cyril Pedrosa. Trans. from the French by Montana Kane. (Originally published 2018.) First Second, February 2020. 224 pp. Hardcover, $29.99. 14 and up.

Thanks to Fables Books, 215 South Main Street in downtown Goshen, Indiana, for providing Commons Comics with books to review.

COVID-19 PROTOCOL: Please wear a mask as required by local mandate, and follow store guidelines. You may enter at either the front or back entrances. High risk customers can still make browsing appointments before or after hours, and all customers can continue to order online at fablesbooks.com, over the phone 574-534-1984, or via email fablesbooks@gmail.com. *Order deadline to ensure Christmas delivery: December 15.*

Right from the opening pages of “Golden Age,” French artist Cyril Pedrosa catapults readers into his surreal, color-lush medieval-era landscape:

Co-writer Roxanne Moreil doesn’t waste time either, swirling the class divide central to this story immediately into the visual soup. The peasants pause their work to watch the nobles and their dogs trample their crops for the sake of royal recreation. Trouble bubbles up from the very soil of the kingdom of Antrevers. Continue reading ““The Golden Age: Book One,” by Roxanne Moreil and Cyril Pedrosa.”

“When Stars Are Scattered,” by Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed

“When Stars Are Scattered,” by Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed. Color by Iman Geddy. Dial Books for Young Readers, April 2020. 264 pp. Paperback, $12.99. Recommended for ages 9-12, although my eight-year-old loved it, and I’m way older than 12 and loved it, too.

Thanks to Fables Books, 215 South Main Street in downtown Goshen, Indiana, for providing Commons Comics with books to review.

COVID-19 PROTOCOL: Please wear a mask as required by local mandate, and follow store guidelines. You may enter at either the front or back entrances. High risk customers can still make browsing appointments before or after hours, and all customers can continue to order online at fablesbooks.com, over the phone 574-534-1984, or via email fablesbooks@gmail.com.

This story has a happy ending. But it’s not an easy road there. “When Stars Are Scattered” is a true story narrated by Somalian refugee Omar Mohamed, the book’s co-author. Mohamed and his younger brother Hassan, grew up and lived for fifteen years in Dadaab, a Kenyan refugee camp, before finally being cleared to resettle in America. Awash in bright colors, Dadaab looks like a fairy-tale landscape:

Continue reading ““When Stars Are Scattered,” by Victoria Jamieson and Omar Mohamed”