Maus: A Survivor's Tale by Art Spiegelman

Title:  Maus : A Survivor’s Tale

Author  Illustrator: Art Spiegelman

Publisher: Pantheon; 1st edition (August 12, 1986)

ISBN-10: 0394747232

ISBN-13: 978-0394747231

Publication Date:  1987

Pages:  160 p (pbk.)

Summary/Review

Maus is a comic book that tells the story of Art’s Spigelman’s father, his experiences in German concentration camps during the Holocaust, a World War II story.

In Maus, human creatures are portrayed as animals. With mice representing Jews and cats representing Nazis, Maus narrates the experiences of Vladek Spigelman, Art’s father, describing his ordeals as a Holocaust survivor with other people, our ancestors who live with the history of such injustice.

The narratives describes the death of Art’s aunt Tosha, his brother Richieu and his cousins. The interview is included word-for-word in the book.

With Maus, the author exposes students to a historical example of religious intolerance through a personal narrative of a Holocaust survivor. The theme serves as a meditation on the effects of a major historical event, the traumatic event of the Holocaust.

Maus is a unique work of art, it won the Pulitzer prize, the first comic book to earn such an honor.

Incantation By Alice Hoffman

Title:  Incantation

Author:  Alice Hoffman

Publisher:  New York: Little Brown

Publication Date:  2006

Pages:  166p

ISBN:  0316010197

Summary/Review

This is a short novel about a sixteen-year-old Jewish girl, Estrella, and her family, living in a small town in Spain around the year 1500, during the time of the Spanish Inquisition.

Estrella is living with her widowed mother Abra. She lives in a house where she feels there are secrets. Her family secretly practices the ancient wisdom called Kabbalah, does not eat pork, and lights candles on Fridays. She feels there are secrets, as she watches her neighbor being taken away to be judged guilt without a fair trial or when  she sees the burning of books of a Jewish man who refuses to renounce his belief live.

As the heroine discovers she is Jewish, she finds herself falling in love with Andres, cousin of her best friend and neighbor Catalina. When Andres returns Estrella’s love, her relationship to her best friend deteriorated.

When Estrella’s family secret became public, she confronts a world she has never imagined. The shocking persecution of the Jews, the realization of falling in love that also ends her friendship with her best friend, evokes her sorrow and determination to survive and confront the reality that she is a Maranno, a Jewish.

With themes of faith, friendship, and persecutions, issues teens of every century could relate to, the author’s talent of imagery shines. Hoffman’s first historical novel is beautifully written, showing the magical realism of the everyday lives of women in that particular time of history.