Refugee The graphic novel

Gr 4--8--In 1939, Josef's Jewish family flees Berlin to escape the Nazi regime. In 1994, Isabel's family sails toward Miami, leaving Castro and Cuba behind. In 2015, Mahmoud and his family run from Syria as civil war rages. Decades and thousands of miles separate them, but Josef, Isabel, and Mahmoud share one thing in common: they are refugees, and their stories converge in surprising ways. This graphic novel adaptation is faithful to the original book, omitting only minor details from the main plotlines. The illustrations, which resemble the superhero comics art style, effectively heighten the drama. For example, when Josef's apartment is trashed by Nazi storm troopers, dark shadows in each panel convey the abruptness of the nighttime raid and the family's terror. The coloring is exquisite, showcasing the beauty of Isabel's Havana and the despair of Mahmoud's Aleppo. Maps are helpfully placed at the beginning of the chapters, showing each character's place in their journey. While the illustrations add excitement, the original novel's emotional heft can get lost in the graphic novel format, and the cliff-hanger chapter endings are not as riveting. The author's note has been updated to reflect new information about Syrian and Cuban refugees since the prose novel's publication. VERDICT The original Refugee remains an important and timely book; this graphic novel adaptation brings the moving stories of Josef, Isabel, and Mahmoud to life for a new generation of readers. A good choice for where the original is popular.--Danielle Sachdeva

In this graphic version of Gratz's bestselling 2017 novel, three groups of refugees in different eras face bitter hardship and persecution in the course of desperate searches for safety. Set respectively in 1938, 1994, and 2015, the accounts involve a passenger ship full of German Jews, a thrown-together group of Cubans on a leaky boat, and a bombed-out Syrian family striking out for the E.U. The original novel folded in actual experiences and, in some cases, real people, unspooling three storylines in short, interleaved chapters; this new edition preserves that structure. It's a tossup whether the change in format offers any real advantages. On the one hand, actually seeing expressively posed characters and the period details around them brings both the cast and the settings sharply to life, moments of crisis and terror have cinematic impact, and racial and cultural differences remain strongly present. On the other, though, because the graphic "chapters" are only three to five pages each, and all the art is done in a similar style and palette, the dozens of switches from one storyline to the next come with dizzying frequency and can't help but impede the narrative flow. Still, after skillfully interweaving his three powerful stories together at their ends, the author urgently invites readers to contemplate their contrasts, parallels, and ever-cogent common themes. An effective adaptation, still relevant and likely to find a fresh audience. (afterword)(Graphic historical fiction. 10-13) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.