Persepolis

As I began reading this book, I was struck by how little I know about the Middle East. I know, quite simply, what I have heard on the news over the years. I do not remember studying the recent history of that part of the world in school at all - ancient history, yes, but not recent history. For that reason, I had no background knowledge to refer to. As she talked about events, I often found myself lost as to exactly what was going on and I ended up re-reading quite a bit.

I was particularly struck by this author's choice of the graphic novel to tell this story. I believe it was an amazing format for this type of story, but it surprised me. When I think of graphic novels, I think of comic strips (yes I said it!), and I think of fun fictional stories. I do not think of a country's history through the eyes of one of its own children. I do not think of displaying wars and their costs. As I said earlier, I believe this was an amazing format for this story, primarily because it allows the author to convey emotion in ways other than words. We get to see people's facial expressions and their joy and fear. This format helps us better understand the components other than just the facts.

The illustrations made this book for me. The black and white/2-dimensional illustrations were vivid and poignant in telling the story. I felt like it helped convey a sort of distance from the story and helped show that these were memories. The illustrations conveyed so much emotion in a very emotionless way (if that makes sense). So often we depend on color to help express emotion (ie. red for anger, blue for calm, etc.) With only black and white illustrations, we were left to feel for ourselves. It was very interesting to me.

As I read this book, I could not help but compare it to Diary of Anne Frank, possibly because it is about a girl growing up in a war ravaged country telling her story. But aside from that, there is an honesty in this story that you only find in stories told from this point of view. We see that children from other countries grow up just like we do though our experiences vary greatly.

As many of my classmates have said, if this book were to be used in the classroom, it would need to be accompanied by some historical information. I also believe that it is appropriate primarily for older students.