By Maureen Tai, 31 December 2018
“I do wish I could imagine away this red hair. I can do that with my freckles and scrawniness and rotten green eyes – even my boring old name, “Anne” – but not this hair. It is my lifelong sorrow.” – Anne Shirley
On a day traditionally spent in wistful retrospection and excited anticipation of new beginnings, it seems fitting to revisit a much-loved classic that has been retold anew in graphic novel form. Anne (with an “e”, she’ll have you mind) is the spirited, wildly imaginative and irrepressible protagonist of one of my childhood favourites, Anne of Green Gables by the prolific Canadian author, Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874 – 1942). I think Ms. Montgomery would have found the beautifully illustrated graphic novel adaptation very much to her liking.
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I am proud to say that I discovered Hilda in her original comic form a few years before she became a Netflix phenomenon. Was it her blue hair, blowing freely in the breeze or her wide round eyes that appealed to me? Or was it the quirky creatures of her world: the creature made of wood with its round bald head completely separated from its tree-stump-like body? the snowy white fox with tiny antlers? the gigantic stone troll with its gaping toothy maw? Or was it the feel of the comic book, its surprising lightness and pages reminiscent of construction paper?
One of the most difficult historical events to explain to a young child is the abhorrent persecution of the Jewish people during World War II, culminating in the Holocaust. But I was determined to make my own children aware of these shameful episodes in history, and I was fortunate to discover hidden, an incredibly powerful graphic novel about a young Jewish girl’s turbulent and heartbreaking childhood in Germany-controlled Vichy, France. The text is simple enough for a young child to read, but the pictures are honest and raw, and pack a deliberate emotional punch that is not easily forgotten.
Illegal charts the harrowing journey that two orphaned brothers make from a poor village in Ghana to promise-laden Italy. The boys cross lands that offer no sanctuary and encounter exploitative grown-ups who offer no mercy.
Stories That Stay With Us 