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Monday, December 6, 2010
ISBN: 9780375714573
Satrapi illustrates the story of her life growing up in Iran from 1979 - to around 1984 while she was ages 9 - 14. The Islamic Revolution took place in 1979 and Satrapi begins the graphic novel with the immediate effect it had on her life: that schools must be gender separated and girls must start wearing the veil. What follows is the story of a young girl trying to make sense of the changes going on around her, learning who to look up to as a hero, facing bombings and death, and trying to come to terms with a God who allows such things to take place.
The illustrations in this graphic novel are done in a stark black and white. But far from lacking the vivacity of color illustrations, Satrapi's artwork comes to life with the use of patterns for textures and inking the negative space in most of the panels to make the people in them stand out more and overall setting a darker tone to the work.
The story manages to balance placing the reader into this vastly different world from America, yet makes it easy to put ourselves in Marjane's shoes as she reacts to the events going on around her. There comes a point in our lives where we are either think our parents are heroes for what they do or we are humiliated because our parents do not meet some societal ideal of heroic. For Marjane, she thinks her father's not a hero because he was not imprisoned and tortured.
Teens will enjoy this window into growing up in a very different country and may be surprised at the similarities they find between how Marjane thinks and how they do. There are many violent scenes and implied violence, but when you consider that Satrapi lived through these scenes and that she probably withheld even more violent ones, I think you'll find this graphic novel young adult appropriate. Recommended for 9th grade up.
Image taken from: http://iranpersepolis.wikispaces.com/file/view/persepolis_cover_big.jpg/32579625/persepolis_cover_big.jpg
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