From Publishers Weekly
Award-winning Italian graphic novelist Gipi (
Garage Band,
The Innocents) returns with this bleak tale of three young drifters making their way across the war-torn landscape of an unnamed Balkan country. Told from the point of view of protagonist Giuliano, the narrative traces his path as he is forced to go through the peripheral results of war as a deadening day-to-day struggle to find food and shelter while avoiding the occasional stray bullet. Falling in with Felix, a sleazy criminal kingpin, Giuliano and his companions soon serve as executors for Felix's extortion racket and later move up the underworld food chain into endeavors in a city removed from the hardships of the war, petty thuggery slowly escalating to murder. Gipi keeps the war itself off screen, instead allowing the conflict's effects upon the young men to play out in numb, soulless detail, a storytelling device that affords the tale a stark and depressing realism further driven home by the cartoony illustrations. While not easy reading, the affecting story is made even more powerful by the understated execution. Winner of the Best Book prize at the Angoulême Comics Festival in 2005.
(Aug.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From School Library Journal
Grade 11 Up–On January 18th, in an unnamed Balkan country, war breaks out. Caught up in adolescence, Giuliano and his friends invent new measures of manhood. Can't walk calmly under threat of sniper fire? Points off. While trying to sell stolen goods, the budding criminals meet up with Felix. The epitome of man, he is served well by the war. He exposes the teens to the lure of money, guns, and violence. Raised in a middle-class family, Giuliano struggles to fit in with his friends. Yet, he can't escape the nagging thought that it's not his war–neither the physical fighting nor the one that his friends are launching against their lower-class lives. As Little Killer and Christian race toward their fate, the protagonist must decide who he is. Like Stassen's powerful
Deogratias, a Tale of Rwanda (Roaring Brook, 2006), Gipi reveals the susceptible nature of teenagers during wartime. The oil drawings are tinged in gray, giving a sense of hopelessness as, years later, Giuliano doubts his decision. The all-male cast has sharp teeth and squinty eyes that reflect their rabid world. Teens won't rush toward this title but they should. It's both a warning and an inevitable story about a boy becoming a man under the most extreme conditions. Once they see themselves in Giuliano, they won't likely forget his memories.
–Sadie Mattox, DeKalb County Public Library, Decatur, GA Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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