Most helpful client reviews
20 of 21 humans found the following review helpful.
The mighty queen of Hereville
By E. R. Bird
“Yet another troll-fighting 11-year-old Orthodox Jewish girl,” says the byline. Well seriously. How was I supposed to pass that up? I’d grabbed a copy of Hereville at an American Library Association group discussion along with a whole host of other books. I don’t think I even gave it half a glimpse at the time. Just nabbed, stuffed, and scooted. It was only back in the ease of my hotel room as I repacked my bags that the byline got my attention. I sat down for a quick look. Twenty minutes later I was still reading, with no intention at all of repacking anything until I was done. In my experience, fantasy novels for children do not like to implicate religion in any way, shape, or form. And children’s graphic novels? Puh-leeze. You’re as likely to find a copy of Babymouse wax rhapsodic on the topic of coordinated religion as you are a copy of Harry Potter. So to read Barry Deutsch’s book is to experience a mild marvel. There is religion, fantasy, knitting, a good deal of of the best art I’ve seen since The Secret Science Alliance, and a story that in truth makes you sit up and feel something. This is like not one thing I’ve ever came across before, and I think it’s veritably remarkable. Without a doubt, this is the best graphic novel of 2010 for kids. Bar none.
Mirka has a dream, but it’s not the kind of thing that gets a lot of support. More than anything else in the entire world she wants to fight dragons. The problem? She’s eleven, a girl, and she lives in the Jewish Orthodox town of Hereville. Still, Mirka gets a bit closer to her dream when she incurs the wrath of a witch’s pig, then does it a good deed, thereby indebting it is witch to her. As it turns out, the witch tells Mirka that there is a good sword in the neighborhood, but the only way to get it is to defeat a troll. And when push comes to shove, Mirka’s going to have to use all her smarts and cunning to defeat an enemy that prizes one of the arts she loathes the most.
Think with regards to children’s fantasy novels and religion for a moment. Religion in fantasies for kids have a tendancy to skew one of three ways. You may incorporate it and make it the entire point of the novel (Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials, the Narnia books of C.S. Lewis or Madeleine L’Engle’s The Wrinkle in Time series which is technically science fiction anyway). You may make up an completely new religion of your own (as in the novels of Frances Hardinge, Tamora Pierce, Megan Whalen Turner, etc.). Or you just sorta forget in regards to it. Remember, in the Harry Potter novels there may be churches and Christmas, but when wizards marry there’s only a vague representative of a good deal of unnamed religion presiding. And children’s graphic novels are in such an infant phase at this point that religion never even comes up half the time. The Bone books by Jeff Smith aren’t in regards to to launch into a treatise of religious doctrines (though Phoney Bone does strike me as a Calvinist at his core).
So Hereville is noteworthy right off the bat because it isn’t afraid. It says, “Yeah, I’m gonna incorporate religion into this book. Heck, I’m even gonna TEACH regarding the religion of Orthodox Jews while I’m at it.” And darned if Deutsch doesn’t! Though Hereville itself might be a made up town populated wholly by practitioners of this religion, what we learn all is true and accurate. From the dissimilar ways girls may be rebellious, pious, or general in their near identical school clothes to Shabbos to what the three braids of the khale represent (truth, peace, and justice), it’s all in there without ever sounding like you’re being taught something. The religion is integral to the story and you wouldn’t want it any other way.
Deutsch’s storytelling, which is also above par, makes this book very much a hero’s quest. However, to defeat her enemy, the troll, Mirka ought to use a set of accomplishments she acquired at the beginning of this book. What I love is that the skill that comes to her aid isn’t her lamentable knitting (the troll insists on a knitting challenge, which Mirka is somewhat less than capable to do) but rather the art of debate as acquired from her stepmother. It’s the power of prevarication at work. At the same time, you’ve grown to in truth care for Mirka and her family. Even when she does bad things, you still understand where she’s coming from. There’s a sequence where she’s hurting her little brother, and the storyline flashes amongst her actions and images of her mother telling her years ago that she is responsible for keeping him safe. You realize then that Mirka is a real person with dimensions and faults, which is something I always like to find in my middle grade comic fare.
And then there’s the art itself. The longer I study it the more remarkable I find it. Sometimes it’s just very basic things. The moments when Deutsch chooses to switch amongst eyes that are plainly black dots with eyebrows and when those eyes acquire whites and pupils is key to understanding the book. Then there are the little things you might not even notice. If two characters are talking and one is reluctant to say something, Deutsch might take a beat to have that reputation flip a braid away that was creeping down her shoulder in the former panels. There are even times when it seems as altho there’s a slight manga influence on the book. Not in terms of the look, of course, but more the reaction shots. Mirka staring daggers at Rochel takes on a literal meaning in one panel. In another, Mirka yelling at Zindel to wake up takes the form of a big panel that in a literal sense pushes him to one side.
Can I take a moment to wax rhapsodic regarding the layouts on these pages too? I mean, this is an art. A true art. Deutsch is so good at breaking up the panels and playing with them. In my bestloved sequence, Mirka visualizes a math problem. She’s in a circumstance where she has two friends over and has already cut a cake into thirds. Then a third friend comes over and she has to find a way to divide the thirds evenly amidst four people. That circumstance takes up two pages but in each one there are multiple Mirkas to keep track of. You manage to do it, though, because of the ways in which Deutsch knows to command your eyeballs. You look incisively where you are supposed to, thanks to his cunning art. These are the sorts of things kids take for granted, but they’re often times difficult to achieve. And it’s surely numerous of the most sophisticated art I’ve seen in a children’s graphic novel, that’s for sure.
Plus I’m a sucker for little details. Since every one in town has to basically wear the same clothes, Deutsch finds ways to reclothe Mirka in suitable ways. From word difficulties to her final sweater, Mirka’s costume is important. And I loved other details as well. The ways in which Gittel looks like her dead mother while Rochel unquestionably has the beginnings of Fruma’s nose.
Oh. And he also draws genuinely good hands. Knitting hands, hands lighting candles, you name it. I like hands and they are hard to draw. So. There’s that.
Confession: Truth be told, there is very little in this book I do not like. What’s more, it offers me, a children’s librarian, a sneaky way to introduce kids to religions and creeds they might not other than as supposed or expected have any exposure to in a format they already love. Bereft of any kind of stereotyping you might name, Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword could only make me angry if it failed to give rise to a sequel in the future. Until then, we’ll just have to be content with this. A noteworthy little book and, I guarantee, like not one thing else you have on your bookstore, library, or personal shelves.
For ages 9-14.
4 of 4 humans found the following review helpful.
Unique and wondrous read
By Madigan McGillicuddy
This terrifi middle-grade graphic novel covers the adventures of Mirka Herschberg, “yet another troll-fighting 11-year-old Orthodox Jewish girl.” Mirka, a bit of an imaginative tomboy, doesn’t feel that she fits in amid her nine sisters. She’s terrible at knitting and most household chores, and longs for adventure, preferably slaying dragons or the like. Sadly, her greatest enemy (besides a basketful of knitting, of course) is a local wild pig, fond of pushing her over on her hike through the woods to school.
One of the things that genuinely struck me when it comes to this book was the seamless blend of ordinary life and the fantastical. Mirka lives in a world where she knows trolls, witches and dragons ought to exist… yet, her warm and loving family and the ordinary each day tribulations she ought to handle at school are so expertly drawn, you almost wonder if she’s only imagined the fantasy elements. When Mirka approaches her stepmother with her worries that her mother may be a dybbuk (a restless, wandering spirit) her stepmother reassures her, “I live in the family your mother made, surrounded by her children and under her roof, I think I’d know it if she were still here.” Unobtrusive footnotes for numerous of the Yiddish phrases were most welcome.
After meeting a mysterious woman in the woods (she will have to be a witch, Mirka decides) she manages to get directions to a concealed (magical?) sword. The adventure is on! Armed only with the cognition that the sword is guarded by a troll, and that trolls are often times effortlessly outwitted, she sneaks out prepared to do battle. When she goes to challenge the troll (brilliantly rendered as an odd cross amid a grumpy middle-aged man and a gigantic spider) the last thing that she is expecting is for him to threaten to have her for dinner, unless she may knit a finelooking sweater that very evening. It’s a knit-off, as Mirka and the troll furiously clack knitting needles to see who will be victorious.
Deutsch genuinely plays with the graphic novel format, breaking up the panels in a heap of dissimilar ways, lending a lot of visual interest and an easy flow to the story. This book is worth a read, and then a re-read to pick up all of the tiny little details concealed in the illustrations. I highly commend it.
5 of 6 humans found the following review helpful.
Publisher’s Weekly’s Sweet Review
By Christian Yetter
From Publisher’s Weekly Starred Review:
“Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword
Spunky Mirka wants to be a dragon-slayer, but every one in the little Orthodox Jewish community of Hereville is versus it. When a witch and a talking pig turn up in the woods near home, Mirka can’t help getting involved, much to the dismay of her seven sisters, brother, and argumentative stepmother.
The book brings new material to the primary Web comic, finished in 2008, permitting Deutsch to make a outstanding comic even better. His expressive, surprising drawings give life to Mirka’s quest and to the strange and authenti relationships she has with family members and magical creatures. Deutsch weaves in selective information in regards to Shabbos, phrases in Yiddish (translated at the bottom of the page), illustrations of the dissimilar looks (rebel, pious, popular) girls construct with the white shirts and long black skirts they wear – and all of it is lively and engaging.
Fantastical constituents mesh utterly with the deep aroused heart of Mirka’s story. “I live in the family your mother made, surrounded by her children and under her roof,” Mirka’s intelligent, prickly, loving stepmother tells her, in one poignant scene. This is a terrific story, told with skill and a large total of heart, that readers of all ages will enjoy.”
See all 17 client reviews…
