White Bird - R.J. Palacio - ★★★★★

AUTHOR: R.J. Palacio

SERIES: Wonder

GENRE: Graphic Novel

PUBLICATION DATE: October 1, 2019

RATING: 5 stars.

In a Nutshell: A graphic novel connected to the outstanding ‘Wonder’ world. Impeccable plot, illustrations, and message. Much recommended. Can be read as a standalone.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” - George Santayana.

I am sure most avid readers have heard of RJ Palacio’s fabulous book, ‘Wonder’. (And if you have heard of it but haven’t read it, dismissing it as children’s/middle-grade fiction, rectify your mistake right away and get to the book!) Auggie’s three classmates – Charlotte, Christopher, and Julian – got their own spinoff novel in ‘Auggie & Me’. In Julian’s arc, we saw a glimpse of his Grandmère, who touched upon an incident from her younger years. This graphic novel takes a detailed look at that memory.

By some strange quirk of fate, this graphic novel first arrived in my life a few years ago as an audiobook. I had absolutely loved the narration and was keenly awaiting the day I could get my hands on the actual book. I never thought I would have to wait almost five years, but my wait is finally over.

In this book, Julian’s Grandmère narrates to her grandson her experience as a young Jewish girl in a Nazi-occupied French village during WWII. She talks about her life before the occupation and also of the painful events during the Nazi takeover. Her reminiscences demonstrate the highs and lows of humankind, and they come with a thought-provoking moral. This book delivers a powerful wallop to the mistakes of the past as well as the present.

It would be so easy to assume that eighty years after the end of WWII, those atrocities are a fact of the past, that such mistakes won't happen again because we have learnt our lesson, and that we have now realised we are all the same underneath our varied religions and races and skin colours. But as we all know, things are somewhat the same even now. So many people would be able to resonate with this line: “To be attacked not for something I have done but for something I am.“ We might not be talking at the level of racial genocide (at least not on the same scale), but we still have not learnt how to look at everyone with equality in our eyes and minds.

I don’t want to speak much about the storyline as it is best discovered for yourself. Suffice it to say, the book delivers on plot development, writing quality, and emotional intensity. Many scenes are harrowing, as would be expected from a WWII book. But there are also scenes that indicate the bigheartedness of humans. Just as in Wonder, this book also contains many lines that would make readers pause and ponder over them.

The extensive end content – covering a guest writer’s note, an author’s note, a glossary, added resources, and a lot more – is the icing on the cake of this outstanding story.

This book marks the debut of Palacio as a graphic artist. She had already impressed me with the power of her pen in ‘Wonder’ (which is one of my all-time favourite novels), and now, she has stunned me with her ability to convey all kinds of emotions just through a character’s face. Her art is simple, but it does the job more than effectively. I appreciate how she kept the depiction of the more gruesome events a bit toned down.

I read this book with my children – all three of us are big fans of Wonder – and it was a memorable experience of shared time and emotions. I don’t think the kids realised how depressing this would get. I could actually hear how invested they were in the story as they kept interjecting with remarks like “Oh no” or tsk-tsking at certain characters. They always chime in with their opinions when we read books together, but this is the first time we didn’t pause for personal discussions in between scenes. Of the three of us, two sobbed through some scenes and the third was a bit shell-shocked as this was her first WWII book and it turned out to be more horrendous than she had bargained for. Despite the tears and fears, they found this outstanding.

Basically, I have no complaints at all about this book. From start to end, it delivered exactly what I wanted, and a lot more. (It helped that I had long forgotten the story heard on audio, so this was as good as a first-time read.)

Much, much recommended. I loved this as both a multi-cast audiobook as well as a graphic novel so take your pick of format. Each has its advantage and disadvantage: outstanding narration but no visuals in the audio, and vice versa in the book.

This graphic novel can be read as a standalone as the story is almost entirely independent of the Wonder characters. But honestly, do yourself a favour and read ‘Wonder’ as well.

This was a library read.