The Complete Maus

Maus is an important work for both comics and the Holocaust. I appreciate how this story paints a full picture of events leading up to one Jewish man's experience in Auschwitz and his exit from the camp. Often the stories I've come across show a person being taken from their life, moved straight into the camp where they either die or are eventually liberated, and that's the end of the story. Here we get a much more complete story.

So why three stars? First, the art style is nothing spectacular. Yes, in a medium where that is what is being presented, that is important. Next, I'm not all that behind the author's choice of animals when depicting people. There are some stereotypes here, and it doesn't bode well with me. Okay, yes, we see what you're doing with the cats and the mice. But Poles are pigs, French are frogs, the one Black person is a dopey patois-speaking Hound, and of course Americans are the ever lovable and loyal family dogs. Lastly, I think the book loses something by focusing so incredibly much on Art's attempt to get the story from his father. It feels like half the book is in the present, a depiction of Art's constant irritation at his miserly father's life.

This book is heartbreaking and important (and far from being too controversial for a classroom), but I don't think this should be the starting and ending point of someone's exploration of the Jewish Holocaust.