Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 174
maus March 8, 2010
S. Gabriel (SACRAMENTO, CA, US)
The book was in very good condition and it came in very fast, within one week.
maus February 8, 2010
quit smoking
Maus is one of the captivating page turners I've every laid eyes upon. The story is Art Spiegelman the author writing his fathers tale and what exactly was involved in surviving the holocaust.
'Maus' Trap January 27, 2010
J. Sherman (New York, USA)
Art Spiegelman's critically-acclaimed graphic novel chronicles both his father Vladek's misadventures in Hitler's Europe and a rocky relationship between father and son. Depicting the Nazis as cats and the Jews as mice (and the Polish as pigs, a hot-button topic in an already controversial piece), Spiegelman's illustrations actually gives "Maus" the type of appeal that couldn't be achieved in any other medium except this one, as well as lure readers who wouldn't have picked up the comic otherwise. The story itself reels you in but "Prisoner on the Hell Planet," Spiegelman's comic-within-a-comic about his late mother, offers even more insight on Spiegelman and his family history despite its contrast with the main story. This is truly the stuff survival stories are made of.
This comic is unrated: Violence, Adult Language, Adult Situations.
you will learn from this December 31, 2009
Holly K. Lee (Chicago, IL)
I really thought that in this point in my life I had learned all there was to know about the Holocaust. I've been to the museums, seen the movies, seen survivors speak, and studied the awful events in school. I didn't expect to gain a new sense of understanding from this survivors tale.
Maus I: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History was a shocking, at times truly disturbing account of a family trying to survive day to day during the Holocaust. This is not a cut and dry tale, it is artfully told through a graphic novel.
I went into this novel wondering "why mice?". As you can see from the cover, the center of the swastika is a cat face. Art Spiegelman has used symbolism to portray a cat and mouse game. The jews are all mice, forever foraging for food and shelter, trying to outsmart the cats that want noting more than to destroy them. The use of this idea in his artwork makes the novel that much more interesting.
I imagine that I could learn something new each time I read this book. There is so much depth, and raw descriptions of what occurred to the authors father and his family. It goes one step deeper in showing how it has affected their lives beyond their time struggling to survive the Holocaust.
A powerful and deeply affecting graphic novel that is an absolute must read.
The Essential Graphic Novel December 30, 2009
This Kayla (Bermuda)
When I was eight years old, this book was included in a Scholastic book order through my school. I was fascinated by WWII at the time, and had every kids book on it, so of course I wanted this one. I had no idea I was ordering a comic book, and when I finally held it in my hands I was mad that it was - up until that point, to me comic books were all shoot 'em ups and superheroes. This book proved me wrong, and started a lifelong love of comics. I'm now in college studying sequential art and plan on going to the field, so you can appreciate how much of a difference this book made to me.
The overall Maus story is a back and forth between the present events of a young Jewish man and his difficult elderly father, and the father's life in WWII as a Jew. This first book - My Father Bleeds History - focuses on the family's relatively normal upscale life diminishing into their eventual going into hiding at the end of the book. It's a side that isn't as commonly told: the diminishing rights, the daily strain, the rumours of the horrible things that were going on, and even his life as a prisoner of war. These stories aren't as well-told in the media, and I really liked seeing them. As someone who was already well-versed in WWII history reading this, it helped me understand better how people could not realise what was actually going on, and that daily life still must continue in horrible situations.
The art is stark, with thick black lines and a very sketchy feeling to it - this is very fitting for the dark story being told. Visually it's a little busy, and during my first reads I remember being occasionally confused and having to reread pages. Nothing too unforgivable or difficult, however!
Like most graphic novels - it's a fairly quick read, it took me about two days to read it as a child, but now I can zip through them back to back in an hour or two. Yet they reread very well; I pick it up several times a year and my copy is quite well-worn.
I would also recommend this to anyone with an appreciation for historical fiction, biographies, memoirs, or those interested in WWII. History is my favourite genre, and I fully believe this book stands strong right against some of the other classics illustrating the picture of that period. This is not only a great graphic novel, this is a great book.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 174
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