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Book Reviews, Graphic novels

The Illiad

by Homer and adapted by Gareth Hinds 2019 / 272 pages The Illiad is a Greek epic that depicts just a part of the siege of Troy. It begins with a helpful intro that shares how Helen was kidnapped by the Trojan's Prince Paris, much to the dismay of her Greek husband, the Spartan King Menelaus, who rallied his allies to besiege Troy to get her back. But there was no quick rescue to be had. Our story begins in the tenth year of the siege, and focuses on all sorts of subplots and subcharacters including many a Greek god. The gods squabble, picking favorites among the soldiers, and offer secret help to them – secret because Zeus also has his favorites and he doesn’t want any interference. Two characters star: the Trojan's Prince Hector, brother of Paris, and the Greek half-god Achilles, who seems capable of defeating armies almost by his ownsome, in large part because he is favored by Zeus. However, neither he, nor Hector, are fated to live long. The story ends with Hectors death, and the story really doesn’t feel all that complete, even as it is loyal to the original in this respect. For how the siege of Troy ends, we’d have to turn to Homer’s The Odyssey (Gareth Hinds has an adaptation of The Odyssey too, but it is marred by a few panels depicting naked women). As a graphic novel adaptation, this is impressive. There is some gore – this is a war story after all – but any kid up for reading this would be old enough to deal with the not-overly graphic pictures of spear and sword wounds. The large size gives the author room to go quite deep (though it is still abridged some) and the visual format, along with key footnotes here and there, help make the story more accessible than it is in the original. Now, why should Christians even care to read about Greek gods and myths? We don't study much about Baal and Asherah after all, and they even make an appearance in the Bible. Well, whereas Baal is almost entirely forgotten, the Greek gods, and the mythos around them, continues to make appearances in today's culture, whether in teen fiction (Percy Jackson), the comics and TV (Hercules), or on the silver screen (Zeus, the Amazons, etc.) References to Achilles' heel, and the Trojan Horse are still in use too. Many of us may not have the time or inclination to study the book, but this comic adaptation allows a reader to quickly get a passing acquaintance with one of Western Civilization's key epics. That seems a very good tradeoff for the minimal time required. So who'd enjoy this? Most kids will find it too tough, so it really is limited to anyone interested in delving into the classics. Even those who intend on reading the book should give this a look – I suspect it could make taking on The Illiad much easier. Two thumbs up for a very good adaptation....

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Book Reviews, Graphic novels

Tiananmen 1989: our shattered hopes

by Lun Zhang, Adrien Gombeaud, and Ameziane 2020 / 115 pages I asked my 13 year-old and her friend whether they'd heard about China's Tiananmen Square and neither knew anything about it. I was surprised, but shouldn't have been: the massacre the square is known for – with the government's tanks rolling over protesting Chinese students, killing hundreds and maybe thousands – happened 20 years before they were born. Tiananmen 1989 is a lightly fictionalized biography of one of the student organizers, Lin Zhang – all the main figures are real, but some surrounding fictionalized characters have been added to round things out. The comic begins 30 years prior to the protests, with Lin Zhang's early years, and accounts of various Chinese Communist Party government leaders rising in influence, then getting purged, and some later being "rehabilitated." That's three decades covered in the first 25 pages. From there it slows down, and for the next 75 pages we get an inside look at the protest's 50 days, beginning on April 16, 1989. We learn that the tens and maybe hundreds of thousands of students arriving at Tiananmen Square was a spontaneous event, organized only after the fact. We hear students debate with each other about what a win would look like. We see hundreds of students decide to hunger strike en masse. And then we watch as the soldiers march in shooting. Cautions Thankfully the violence is depicted with moderation – we see a couple of people shot, and some bodies at a distance. This isn't a graphic novel you'd want to put in your elementary school library, but no high schooler would be shocked. Language concerns are limited to a couple uses of "bastard." The more notable caution would be ideological. The god of this book is democracy. That's what the students were after, and willing to die for. It's what they placed all their hope in. They spoke of their fight in spiritual tones, likening it to a battle of "light vs. darkness."  Near the end of the protest they even crafted a "goddess of democracy" statue. Young readers need to understand that democracy wouldn't have been the fix-all that the students thought it would be. Their communist state was founded on the sin of envy, and a turn to democracy wouldn't have done anything to excise the envy – it is prevalent, and every bit as destructive, in democracies too. While this is an insider's perspective, I was impressed with its moderate tone. He's criticizing his government, but also celebrates some within it. I did wonder if some bias might have been evident in the numbers: he wrote of a million protesters, whereas other accounts list as few as 100,000. Conclusion I think the memory of the massacre has faded even among those old enough to have seen it happen, reported live by CNN and the BBC, and carried by stations around the world. Do Canadians still remember what happened after martial law was declared, and thousands of Chinese troops descended on the unarmed students? Governments around the world condemned the Communist Party leadership for its violent overreaction. If Canadians still remembered, I rather suspect Prime Minister Trudeau wouldn't have dared invoke the Emergency Measures Act this past summer to turn the police on the Freedom Convoy protest on Parliament Hill. Connections would have been made. If our young people were taught about the Tiananmen Square Massacre, they'd be aware that powerful governments have done enormous harm to their own citizenry. Yet a recent poll of Americans shared that among the under-30s polled, 29% would favor an in-home government surveillance camera, installed in the name of reducing domestic crime. A third of these young people trust their government so completely they'd like it in their houses. There's good reason then, to get this book into our school libraries. God calls us to honor those He puts in place over us, but it is only when we understand how power can corrupt, and how power has been abused, that we will know the importance of limited, restrained government....

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Book Reviews, Graphic novels

Fever year: the killer flu of 1918

by Don Brown 2019 / 96 pages In the Spring of 1918, even as the First World War was winding down, a more deadly foe made its presence known. An army cook, in Camp Funston, Kansas, reported sick, and over the next month a thousand of his campmates would also fall ill. Author Don Brown seems to be making the case that the Spanish Flu didn't originate in Spain, but in America, making the jump overseas with the soldiers that departed as the US entered the "war to end all wars." That, however, is a contentious point. The other sources I consulted agree that the disease was called the Spanish Flu only because the Spanish press was being more open about the numbers of citizens being struck down, and not because they were the actual source of the sickness. The true source of the illness seems to be a mystery. What's uncontested is the devastating nature of the epidemic. Before it was through, the Spanish Flu would travel around the world, and more than 50 million would die. By way of comparison, about half that numbered died during the entirety of the First World War, and as many as a third of those were from the Spanish Flu, and not weapons. The moral of Don Brown's story could be taken in very different directions, based on the particular bias of the reader. That this flu jumped from city to city via infected travelers could be seen as proving the need for lockdowns. That health authorities assured the public of facts not in evidence – that there was no reason to worry – could be used to argue health authorities have a long history of lying to us. That New York kept schools and most businesses open, and that the city had a lower than average death rate, could be used to argue against lockdowns. That San Francisco embraced masks but had the worst death rate on the west coast might be used to argue against masks' efficacy. Or folks could look to how San Francisco banned all social gatherings except church services and see that as evidence that their ban needed to go further. As you can see, there is a lot information offered up, and it points in all sorts of directions. What's more certain are the heroes: doctors and nurses who worked endless hours trying to aid the ever growing numbers in need. Neighbors and even the elderly all chipped in when whole families would get laid low. Brown details the search for a vaccine, and how there was a real mystery to be solved. Though the flu was obviously highly contagious, doctors weren't sure about the how. Sick patients could cough right in the face of volunteers without infecting them. Cautions This graphic novel came out at the end of 2019, 100 years after the Spanish Flu it chronicles, but just a few months before COVID-19 made its appearance. I've been wondering ever since if that was the very worst of times, or the best of times for this graphic novel to get published. If I'd reviewed this during the lockdowns, I might have added cautions about drawing too strong a conclusion from the information offered up in a comic book. That's still a good thought, but a little less necessary. While Don Brown illustrates the dead with some restraint – simple lines communicate discomfort and pain, but aren't realistic enough to really shock – this still isn't a comic for kids. 50 million people died from the Spanish Flu, so the topic is too grim for the very young. But I'd recommend it as a great one for a high school library. Conclusion Our recent history makes that an even more intriguing, and even more sobering read. What we went through parallels much of what the world endured then, though theirs was the far deadlier plague. That a virus can infect a third of the world reminds everyone to "seek the Lord while He may be found" (Is. 55). That's a lesson we were reminded of in the last few years, and one everyone would do well not to forget....