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Art Spiegelman: The Complete Maus

 This is again another book I intend to use for AP. Something I love about this is the rhetoric is two-fold - you not only have to look at the dialogue but the drawings as well.

Art Spiegelman relates the story of his parents' experience as Jews in Poland during World War II and all that they went through in the camps. This book goes through conversations Art had with his father in the present (he lived in New York before his passing) and their World War II story in the 1930s and 1940s. Vladek (Art's father) owned a textile mill in Poland. He was drafted and sent to the border to fight the Germans before the onset of the War. He was captured and sent to a POW camp before being released and sent home. Once the Germans took over Poland, Vladek lost his mill and he moved his family in with his in-laws. Things gradually got worse for them. They lost Anja's (his wife's) grandparents, then Anja's parents, and their young son was sent to live with extended family for his safety. As the Germans tightened restrictions on the Jews and sent more and more of them to camps, Vladek and Anja's son was killed by the family he was staying with. Eventually, Vladek and Anja were sent to Auschwitz where they struggled to survive until the end of the war.

This is a really impactful book, and I think a big part of its impact is that it's nonfiction. It's sickening to read about how the Jews were treated, and Vladek doesn't leave any details out. He wasn't afraid to tell his story, and as Art says, I think it's important. I loved the artwork and the telling of his father's story. Art does his best to capture the character of his father, his mother, and his stepmother.

Overall, I rate this book

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

PG13 - brief nudity and violence



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