Harald's Reading List

"It really gets into the feel of what it was like then, throughout the Islamic revolution and the Iran-Iraq war. It shows the history of Iran through one person’s life, and the people around her. The author’s family wanted the revolution, which was when the people in Iran revolted against the monarch. Her grandfather was a prince, but he became a communist. They were a pretty well-off family, but they still wanted the Shah to leave. The Shah wasn’t doing a good job of ruling, and I think most people wanted that to change. But they had no idea that Iran would become even more oppressive than before, after becoming an Islamic republic. This graphic novel describes how it got worse and how horrible it was. She is 10 years old at the start of the book. At the end of the book she is 14 and leaves Iran without her parents. There is a second volume about her life in Vienna and her adult life back in Iran. She is looking back at her childhood, so we get a look into her life but also a look into the political story of Iran at that time. There are some traumatic bits so I wouldn’t recommend this graphic novel for people younger than 10 years old. The author did the art herself. It’s quite different to most graphic novels. It’s all black and white. It’s a bit cartoony but still serious."

"You don’t see many stories set in Zimbabwe , which made this graphic novel a bit different for me. The art is nice and colourful and depicts the nature of southern Africa really well. The characters are well written and it’s a good story. I like it. The main character, Siku, is the daughter of the river god Nyaminyami. She is found as a baby by two treasure hunters, or pirates. One of them stops being a treasure hunter to raise her. White people want to build a dam but the river god wouldn’t like it and would break it down, so they try to kill the river god. The tribespeople don’t want the dam because it will flood them, and they don’t want to have to leave their homes. Siku has to make a decision and face her powers and stop the river god getting killed. So she goes on a big adventure with some pirates and an Italian boy whose mum is an engineer working to build the dam. The Kariba dam really exists on the Zambesi river. It was built in the 1950s so the story is set then, although it is fantasy. It’s about having to make a choice between the environment and development, or whether there is a way to find a balance. This book has quite a lot of pages, I think it’s best for 10-13 year olds."

"The Breadwinner was first a novel and then a film . It’s set in Afghanistan under the Taliban . It’s probably for 9-13 year olds, and the art in the graphic novel is from the animation film. It’s got very nice art. Anyway, I really like Northern Lights and the other books in that series, so that’s the one I’ve picked. I listened to the audiobook first, then I read the books, and The Book of Dust . Then I watched the film and the TV series . I read the graphic novel recently. All of them are good. It’s very original and very well written. You really get into the world of those characters, and there is lots of adventure. The novel is not necessarily a children’s book although the main character is a child. Having it as a graphic novel really helps to make it an easier read, so you can give the story to younger children. It’s quite a complicated story. You need less imagination to read the graphic novel, so unless you have a very good imagination it’s a bit more escapism to read it. The art is very good. They put the story into a graphic novel really well, much better than most that were not originally a graphic novel. And the characters are well represented according to how the author described them and their personalities in the book. The illustrator has to make artistic choices but that doesn’t mean you should completely change the characters’ appearance, but quite a few graphic novels do. This graphic novel is a great alternative to reading the book, especially for 10-13 year olds."