Are you ready to read a graphic novel memoir/history that won a special citation Pulitzer and an Eisner award among others? Are you ready to read a personal account of survival and family tragedy during one of the darkest times in 20th century history? Are you ready to rebel against a book banning school board? Then read The Complete Maus along with me this July.

From GoodReads:

On the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of its first publication, here is the definitive edition of the book acclaimed as “the most affecting and successful narrative ever done about the Holocaust” (Wall Street Journal) and “the first masterpiece in comic book history” (The New Yorker).

The Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus tells the story of Vladek Spiegelman, a Jewish survivor of Hitler’s Europe, and his son, a cartoonist coming to terms with his father’s story. Maus approaches the unspeakable through the diminutive. Its form, the cartoon (the Nazis are cats, the Jews mice), shocks us out of any lingering sense of familiarity and succeeds in “drawing us closer to the bleak heart of the Holocaust” (The New York Times).

Maus is a haunting tale within a tale. Vladek’s harrowing story of survival is woven into the author’s account of his tortured relationship with his aging father. Against the backdrop of guilt brought by survival, they stage a normal life of small arguments and unhappy visits. This astonishing retelling of our century’s grisliest news is a story of survival, not only of Vladek but of the children who survive even the survivors. Maus studies the bloody pawprints of history and tracks its meaning for all of us.

Schedule:

We will read about 80 pages a week.

July 8: Part 1, chapter 1 to 3

July 15: Part 1, chapter 4 to 6

July 22: Part 2: chapter 1 to 2

July 29: Part 2: chapter 3 to 5 (end)

Bingo Cards:

Graphic novel, nonfiction, Runner-Up, and 1990s.

Maus Wikipedia

Art Spiegelman Wikipedia

The Complete Maus on GoodReads

(You don't have to read the complete edition. As long as you have Part 1 and Part 2, it's the same thing as the compilation.)

See you in two weeks.