Friday Find #9

We discussed a graphic novel at our book club meeting on Wednesday (see post). One of our members listened to Nancy Pearl's September podcast on graphic novels prior to the meeting and brought with her a list of the books mentioned in the episode. One in particular jumped out at me...

Stitches by David Small

One day David Small awoke from a supposedly harmless operation to discover that he had been transformed into a virtual mute. A vocal cord removed, his throat slashed and stitched together like a bloody boot, the fourteen-year-old boy had not been told that he had throat cancer and was expected to die.

Small, a prize-winning children's author, re-creates a life story that might have been imagined by Kafka. Readers will be riveted by his journey from speechless victim, subjected to X-rays by his radiologist father and scolded by his withholding and tormented mother, to his decision to flee his home at sixteen with nothing more than dreams of becoming an artist. Recalling Running with Scissors with its ability to evoke the trauma of a childhood lost, Stitches will transform adolescent and adult readers alike with its deeply liberating vision.

Holy moly! this sounds both horrible and fascinating. I'm hoping our library's graphic novel collection has a copy so I can check it out.