Replay

February 23, 2024

Gr 9 Up-The creator of the Prince of Persia video game crafts an intergenerational memoir in graphic novel format. Mechner's inspiration for this book is his grandfather, who took the time to write his own memoir, and encouraged his descendants to do the same. Readers follow along in the present day as adult Jordan develops a new video game, raises his two kids, and goes through a breakup. We learn about Jordan's grandfather, Adolf, who lived through and survived WWII as a Jewish man in Europe. Jordan shares his own father's, Franz, backstory which features Jordan's childhood (including how he developed Prince of Persia in the 1980s). Organized into eight chapters and ending with an epilogue, the story jumps around among decades but is easy to follow. The characters are well developed, and readers will get to know the three subjects intimately. Drawn with black ink pen and brush on A4 paper, the use of color is strikingly intentional and delineates the setting. For example, red hues indicate his grandfather's story during WWII, blue hues indicate his father's story and Jordan's childhood, while yellow hues indicate present day. The font was created from Mechner's handwriting. VERDICT A unique book for the right reader; perhaps teen fans of Mechner's work, those interested in video game development, and readers looking for a new take on WWII sagas.-Gretchen Schulz

Copyright 2024 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 15, 2024
How do you hold a family together in the face of generational trauma and rapidly changing technology? This is the central question at the heart of Mechner's graphic memoir, in which he traces his family's history of living through WWI and becoming refugees fleeing the Nazi regime in WWII and how this history lives on in his own struggles. Mechner, best known as the creator of the Prince of Persia video game series, puts his experience in threading complex stories across time to great effect here. Weaving the story across more than a century, half a dozen countries, and three generations, he mixes personal experience, family history, and political history into an approachable, relatable story for anyone who's experienced family drama. Drawing in a style rich with detail, he makes smart use of colors to aid the reader and set the mood for the time, and sparse splashes for emotional impact (red for Nazi Germany for example). Keep your eyes out for the white mouse! This is a timely memoir that will appeal to fans of both Maus and Box Brown's reality-based comics.

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May 6, 2024
Video game designer Mechner uses alternating color palettes to distinguish between his, his father’s, and his grandfather’s timelines in this illuminating debut. Scenes from his Jewish grandfather Adolf’s unfinished memoir about living through WWI and WWII unfold in parallel to Mechner’s more quotidian struggles to keep his marriage together after he moves his family to France in 2015. Interwoven with this present-day migration story are vignettes recounting how Adolf’s life in Austria is upended by the Nazis. He’s forced to join the military and ultimately leave his son Franz behind as he migrates to Cuba in search of safety in 1938. Franz and his caretaker flee first to France and then to Havana, where they’re reunited with Adolf. Drawn in loose line art, the narrative jumps between time periods freely and rapidly to reveal the intertwining of generations. The alternating story lines can be hard to follow, but what emerges is an affecting ensemble portrait of one family’s experience with war and dislocation. Fans of Maus will want to take a look.