Kazuki Ebine,
Gandhi: A Manga Biography
Penguin Books, 2011.

Ages 10-14

Award-winnning animation artist Kazuki Ebine’s Gandhi A Manga Biography appears at first glance to be an ideal meeting of form and content that will appeal greatly to young adult readers. The greyscale-illustrated book provides an easily digested overview of Gandhi’s life, including specific events in South Africa and India that tested and strengthened his resolve to resist all temptation toward violence. Ebine’s project is something of a ground breaker for a genre that is often associated with aggressive action stories.

As the page order is reversed (to left-to-right), the book will be an easy introduction to manga for readers accustomed to western page layout. Ebine’s skill as a draftsman is evident, particularly in his portrayal of Gandhi as he ages. Over the 192 pages of the story, Gandhi is taken from a precocious child through his education as a barrister in England to his appointment in South Africa, where his action on behalf of Indian civil rights inspires his growing conviction that only peaceful resistance has the moral force to overcome injustice, and finally to India, where he works with Nehru but fails to stop the political forces leading to the partition and to the creation of Pakistan.

Compelling as the story is, the execution is somewhat disappointing. Penguin’s second in its manga biography series (an earlier volume featured the Dalai Lama) badly needs an editor. The text is riddled with awkwardness, from the many instances of agreement error (Japanese doesn’t distinguish singular from plural) to amusingly goofy expressions. (My favorite is “When I first heard your speech, I was so inspired as if you boiled my blood.”) The only closing punctuation marks are exclamation points and question marks. The lack of page numbers is an inconvenience. Young readers expecting a deeper understanding of Gandhi’s life and moral development may find that in this case, the manga form is less adroit than usual at conveying story through image.

Despite these hindrances, manga enthusiasts will appreciate getting biographical information in a favored format, and Penguin’s effort to present Gandhi’s life and precepts to a generation of more visually-oriented young adult readers is laudable. Let’s hope the editorial glitches are worked out as the company publishes further inspiring lives in the manga genre.

Charlotte Richardson
November 2011

As its name suggests, the bookshop is situated in Willesden, in North West London, which is one of the most ethnically diverse boroughs in London with upward of 30 languages spoken in its schools. Steve talked about rising to the challenge of finding books that reflect this diversity of culture in modern Britain. As far as publishing goes in the UK, “There’s a great time lag between recognising that diversity and publishers coming out with appropriate books” – with some notable exceptions, namely Frances Lincoln, Tamarind Books and some books from a few of the big publishers like Penguin. There’s an increase in books reflecting contemporary African heritage but it is still difficult to find Asian children in a normal British setting. There are some lovely books like My Mother’s Sari but they do not often step outside the stereotypical view. However, looking out into the wider world, books are starting to appear which show modern Indian cities – and the same with Africa: not just a focus on rural life in these countries but also books showing the modern urban areas.

Click on the pictures to enlarge

The children’s section of the bookshop welcomes young readers under a jungle canopy, with a mouth-watering selection of books, nearly all within reach of young people. On one side there is a display area devoted to Celebrating Black History and at the back are to be found a carousel of books featuring different faith celebrations and floor-to-ceiling shelves of books for the website. They also stock a wide range of dual-language books, with an increasing emphasis on Eastern European languages and culture, and this is reflected too in one of the most recent sections to be added to the website: Poland and Eastern Europe.

The website, which currently trades solely within the UK, caters not only for schools and teachers, but also for a mixture of individual parents across the country who are looking for a wider variety of books than they can find easily more locally. Half of The Willesden Bookshop’s trade is through schools – and indeed, in these challenging times for local, independent bookstores, Steve candidly admits they would not be able to survive without that trade. They have a good relationship with local schools and their teachers – and will do research for them if they’re needing something for a particular topic. At the moment they are looking to introduce a multicultural maths section to their website.

So what caught our eye? Plenty! Here I am holding A Ride on Mother’s Back: A Day of Baby-Carrying Around the World by Emery Bernhard and We Are All Born Free… and here, in no particular order, are what we came away with ( and lots of them will be reappearing as we report back on our PaperTigers Reading Challenge…):

Ice Trap! Shackleton’s Incredible Expedition by Meredith Hooper, illustrated by M.P. Robertson (Frances Lincoln, 2000);
Follow the Drinking Gourd by Jeanette Winter (Dragonfly Books, Alfred A. Knopf, 1992);
The Patchwork Path: A Quilt Map to Freedom by Bettye Stroud, illustrated by Erin Susanne Bennett (Candlewick Press, 2007);
Hairy Maclary’s Hat Tricks by Lynley Dodd (Puffin, 2008);
Gandhi by Amy Paston (Dorling Kindersley, 2006);
Planting the Trees of Kenya by Claire A. Nivola (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008);
Alphabet Gallery: An AbC of Contemporary Illustrators (Mammoth, Egmont Books 1999, in association with The Dyslexia Institute);
The Worst Children’s Jobs in History by Tony Robinson (Macmillan, 2006).

Just as well we live a long way away! But I can recommend the bookshop – and if you can’t get there in person then do check out the website. Thank you, Steve and staff, for a memorable visit.

PEACE is more than the absence of war.
It is about transforming our societies and
uniting our global community
to work together for a more peaceful, just
and sustainable world for ALL. (Peace Day)

There is an ever-increasing number of children’s books being written by people who have experienced conflict first hand and whose stories give rise to discussion that may not be able to answer the question, “Why?” but at least allows history to become known and hopefully learnt from.

For younger children, such books as A Place Where Sunflowers Grow by Amy Lee-Tai and illustrated by Felicia Hoshino; Peacebound Trains by Haemi Balgassi; and The Orphans of Normandy by Nancy Amis all focus on children who are the innocent victims of conflict. We came across The Orphans of Normandy last summer. I was looking for something to read with my boys on holiday, when we were visiting some of the Normandy World War II sites. It is an extraordinary book: a diary written by the head of an orphanage in Caen and illustrated by the girls themselves as they made a journey of 150 miles to flee the coast. Some of the images are very sobering, being an accurate depiction of war by such young witnesses. It worked well as an introduction to the effects of conflict, without being unnecessarily traumatic.

The story of Sadako Sasaki, the young Japanese girl who died aged twelve from leukkemia eleven years after the atom bomb fell on Hiroshima, is a truly inspirational one. There are several versions of the story, adapted for different age-groups. I haven’t seen the one by Eleanor Coerr illustrated by Ed Young but I’d like to! One Thousand Paper Cranes: The Story of Sadako and the Children’s Peace Statue by Takayuki Ishii is definitely a book for adults as well as older children; one which all will benefit from reading together. For more children’s books about Peace, check out Uma Krishnaswami‘s booklist…

Books about people who devoted their lives to Peace include Gandhi by Demi and Jane Addams: Champion of Democracy by Judith Bloom Fradin and Dennis Brindell Fradin. The Jane Addams Book Award list is always a good resource for the latest stories about seeking peace in times of conflict.

And don’t miss Susan Guevara’s Personal View in this month’s PaperTigers Update: “Literacy: a Path to Peace”. Look at her stunning mural and mull over Pat Mora’s beautiful poem.