Maus


 * by Shawn Madere

1. From whose perspective is the story told? (A Jew? A Nazi? A survivor? A Righteous Gentile? A Descendant of a survivor?) What are the benefits of getting the story from this perspective? //Maus: A Survivor's Tale// by Art Spiegelman is told from the perspective of the son of a survivor.

2. What life lesson did you learn from the plot of this story? Aside from the obvious moral lessons, I learned that any story can be told in any fashion, thus reaching ANY reader. This is a nonfiction graphic novel about the Holocaust.

3. What did you like most about this book? I enjoyed the anthropomorphism. Spiegelman drew the Jews as mice and Germans as cats. When I picked up the book for the first time, I thought it was a joke; however, I now feel that it //helps// people understand the Holocaust more by using a familiar cat-mouse analogy.

4. How does this text relate, if at all, to** **//Parallel Journeys//? This text relates to Helen Waterford's journey; both discuss in detail experiences at concentration camps and the everlasting psychological effects. However, there are some major differences; for example, Vladek (Art Spiegelman's father, the survivor) is racist himself, whereas Helen Waterford holds no hatred toward her fellow humans.

5. How could you use this book to teach the Holocaust?**
 * My school assigned English III students to read this graphic novel over the summer, so I have already taught the novel. However (unfortunately), I spent very little time on it as it was a summer reading assignment, and due to time constraints I needed to begin the course with early American literature.

I do plan to teach this graphic novel to its full extent next year, though, and in doing so, we will analyze the graphic novel in two major ways: (1) We will examine the effects of the images that accompany every facet of the story (which is especially helpful as many students are visual learners), and (2) we will study the anthropomorphism and Spiegelman's unparalleled ability to make the Holocaust more accessible than many traditional texts do.

Regarding assessments, I might assign students to create their own "comic" strip (about one page) depicting an instance of injustice in their own lives. Students who are uncomfortable with drawing may be able to pair with a drawer and then choose the dialogue for the characters.

6. Would you recommend this book to a friend? I already have!

Katie Sauter read Maus as well:

1. From whose perspective is the story told? (A Jew? A Nazi? A survivor? A Righteous Gentile? A Descendant of a survivor?) What are the benefits of getting the story from this perspective? It's told by Artie, the son of a Holocaust survivor. He's finding out what happened to his mother and father as the story progresses, and the reader gains some insight into just how much the Holocaust affected his father, as we have access to the father-son relationship.**


 * 2. What life lesson did you learn from the plot of this story?** This book helped me to see that for some people, like Artie's father, the Holocaust never really ended. It still had a daily impact on his life years later: his paranoia, his grief for his dead wife, and his inability to trust people, including his second wife.


 * 3. What did you like most about this book?** I liked the fact that it was a graphic novel, and that the characters were portrayed as mice, cats and pigs rather than people. It's a fresh approach to depicting the Holocaust, one that I found effective.


 * 4. How does this text relate, if at all, to //Parallel Journeys//?** It tells a similar story about the experiences of a Jewish couple during the Holocaust. However, whereas Alfons and Helen tried to turn their experiences into something teachable, Artie's father just sort of wallows in his self-pity.


 * 5. How could you use this book to teach the Holocaust?** I think the format its in helps because of the visuals and its an in-depth look at what happened to one family. Students would relate to it because they tend to respond more to visuals than to straight text. //Parallel Journeys// would be difficult to teach because there is so much information in it.


 * 6. Would you recommend this book to a friend?** Yes, because I like the graphic novel format.