Bibliographic Information

Spiegelman, A. (1986). Maus. New York, NY: Pantheon Books.

ISBN: 0394747232

 

Plot Summary

Maus 1 by Art Spiegelman starts with Art arriving at his father’s house to interview him and learn more about his past as a Holocaust survivor. We learn that they do not have a good relationship that his father has aged since having two heart attacks and the suicide of his wife Anja. Art’s father Vladek has since remarried another holocaust survivor named Mala. His father talks about his life before World War II, which included his marriage to Anja and the birth of their first son Richieu. Art’s father was required to join the war as a solider and was even taken captive as a prisoner of war by Nazi Germany. After some time he was allowed to return home. He and Anja soon send their son Richieu to live with Anja’s sister who ends up poisoning themselves and Richieu in order to avoid deportation by the Germans. His father and Anja later attempt to be smuggled out of the country, but are captured and separated. Eventually they find their way back to each other, but Europe is still not safe for them.  

 

Critical Evaluation

I think Spiegelman feels guilty that he lived the life he did, why his father, mother and brother suffered greatly for many years during the Holocaust. He never knew his brother Richieu who died and his mother couldn’t take the pain and eventually committed suicide. Spiegelman and his father have a strained relationship and Spiegelman believes this in large part due to the loss of Richieu and Anja. Spiegelman lived a much easier life when compared to his family members, which is something that divides him from them. He interviews his father to learn more about his past and creates a graphic novel about it. I think it was interesting that Spiegelman choose to draw the characters from his father’s story as animals. The Nazi’s were drawn as cats, while Jewish characters were drawn as mice. It felt like he was trying to depict this game of cat and mouse with the Nazis and the Jewish characters. Sometimes he drew the characters as if they were wearing masks. Which to me represented that these characters could be anyone under the masks. His father's story could be anyone’s story.  

 

Reader’s Annotation

If given the option would you want to know someone’s story, even if it is a painful one? Art’s father is Holocaust survivor, but the turmoil his father carries around is still real. Art decides one day that he does want to know his father story, the one with all the raw and honest details.

 

Author Information

The following information was taken from the author’s biography, http://barclayagency.com/site/speaker/art-spiegelman.

 

“Art Spiegelman has almost single-handedly brought comic books out of the toy closet and onto the literature shelves. In 1992, he won the Pulitzer Prize for his masterful Holocaust narrative Maus— which portrayed Jews as mice and Nazis as cats. Maus II continued the remarkable story of his parents’ survival of the Nazi regime and their lives later in America.

 

His comics are best known for their shifting graphic styles, their formal complexity, and controversial content.  In his lecture, “What the %@&*! Happened to Comics?” Spiegelman takes his audience on a chronological tour of the evolution of comics, all the while explaining the value of this medium and why it should not be ignored. He believes that in our post-literate culture the importance of the comic is on the rise, for comics echo the way the brain works. People think in iconographic images, not in holograms, and people think in bursts of language, not in paragraphs.” Continue Reading Here

 

Genre

Non-fiction Graphic Novel, Autobiography, Holocaust  

 

Curriculum Ties

Could be used for lessons on world history and the Holocaust.

 

Booktalking Ideas

• Why do you think Spiegelman has a strained relationship with his father?

• Why do think Spiegelman choose to draw the Nazis as cats and Jewish characters as mice?

 

Reading Level/ Interest Age

Grades 9-12

 

Challenge Issues

N/A

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Challenge Issue Resources (for usage in a challenge situation)

• Active Listening

• Explanation of why it was chosen for the collection (Rational)

• Awards

• Reader Advisory Reviews (Students, Parents, Educators)

• Positive and Negative Reviews

• National Council of Teachers “Right to Read”

• ALA Strategies and Tips for Dealing with Challenges to Library Materials

• ALA Bill of Rights on Intellectual Freedom

• Library Selection Policy & Library District Reconsideration Form 

 

Why I choose it

I choose to read this book because I think it is important to read stories about individual experiences from history. We can read about history in a book, but reading about the experiences from individuals who survived those historic moments are more meaningful and often more impactful on readers.