One Child’s Journey Through the Rwandan Civil War – Snapdragon Alcove
Author: Gaspard Talmasse
Translator: Nanette McGuinness
Genre: Biography
Publish: 2021
Page Count: 144
Review
A very heartbreaking story that does have a happy ending to what Alice and her family went through however, that does not undo the trauma and tragedy of what the people in Rwanda had gone through.
Told through the perspective of Alice as a child living in Rwanda during the 1990s when the civil war erupted between the Tutsis and Hutu. The art is not explicit of the violence that happens, in other words its like seeing something burred out on TV or cut away to the reaction of the girls seeing the horror before them. However you still get the idea that there violence piles of dead bodies and
I am not a fan of the big eyes art style but, having seen it before I get why it used here. My take is that the big eyes represent the innocents and the humanity of the people. Also represent the shock these people are going through with their lives being uprooted with this war. After all the eye is the window to the soul.
I like the extra information in the back of the book that goes in to the history of The Rwanda Geocide, as well as the interview of the mom with her perspective on the events that happen.
Must like The Dead Eye and The Deep Blue Sea this is a graphic novel I would recommend in terms that it an important peace of history that needs to be known about.
It is hard not to see the parallels of one group of people hating on another group. How one group of people dehumanize the other through name calling. How one group of people spread lies through media about the other group of people. Sorry bout this just sound so familiar.
I never learn about the The Rwanda Geocide until I was in collage.
Looking more in to the history after reading this graphic novel, I am shock that about 100,000 people die within a span of three months.
Honestly I could just go on and get side tracked from this review. Again I recommend this graphic novel.
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