Jews in America: A Cartoon History » (COMIC)

This over-sized volume is a graphic history that uses the comic book format—an artistic expression as American as jazz—to depict five centuries of Jewish life in this country. With its blend of humor, history, and old-fashioned sentimentality, David Gantz, an artist who has spent a lifetime using paper and ink to present social commentary and issues with a wry wit, illustrates the prominence of Jews in American history from the time Columbus first set foot in the New World. Jews in America will appeal to readers from ages 12 to 120.

Children's Literature

This oversized paperback practically vibrates with excitement and originality. It is, as the title suggests, a comic book history of Jewish life in the United States (with several pages about how Jews fared in medieval Europe added to the pot, providing a taste of why they came to the New World in the first place). Gantz employs the right mix of humor, fantasy, fact, opinion, and pathos to tell his the story. The cartoon images are big and bold and reflect Gantz's research into the ever-changing fashions, structures, and living conditions during the five centuries he covers. Using a mix of narrative text and comic-style dialogue balloons, the book rarely stops its galloping forward motion. This is not a source of history for readers to refer to on its own, as it assumes a certain amount of background knowledge on the part of the reader, and some of its editorializing begs for debate. But as a companion to more traditional sources of history, a book cannot get much more high interest than this. This comic book is definitely not for children, however. Readers younger than twelve seem unlikely to be able to keep up with the level of writing and ideas, and immature readers may have difficulty putting some of the more disturbing images into context. Students who are able to read and absorb Art Spiegelman's Maus as part of their study of the Holocaust are definitely candidates for Gantz's book.