"A Game for Swallows: To Die, To Leave, To Return" by Zeina Abirached

Zeina Abirached is an artist, and it shows.  In all graphic novels, you want the text and images to blend into a dynamic partnership with each element enhancing the overall story-telling.  In this case, the story is good, but the artwork is spectacular.  Done in black and white ink, the tale is of a child's viewpoint during the Lebanese civil war in the late 1970s/early 1980s.  It is easy to see how this book garnered a Batchelder Honor this past year.  With tremendous similarities to "Persepolis" this is another story of a young person's perception of the world around them being wholly and irrevokably changed by growing up in a war-zone.  Where "Persepolis" succeeds on a personal level (you learn to love Marjane Satrapi's snarky alter-ego) this one is more subtle.  The entire tale takes place during a single blackout.  Two children are awaiting their parents' arrival from the "other side" of the demarcation zone.  The bombing prevents the parents from travelling, so neighbors in the small apartment building gather together in the building foyer to pass the time and calm the children.  Unlike "Persepolis" the narrator is somewhat de-personalized in this tale, as most of the points of view -- image-wise, are the neighbors.  For more than half of the book, the children do not even appear in the frames.  The story focuses on the neighbors, an eclectic and colorful group who represent the many ways that the citizens of Lebanon were impacted by the war.  Backgrounds are almost universally black, with occasional white spots to single out a specific figure.  The artwork doesn't just set the tone, it tells much of the story, with the opening pages zooming in on the streets of Beirut -- only after staring at them for a moment do you realize the number of bullet-holes pockmarking the various surfaces.  A few pages later there is a map of the city that is whited out in the center, showing how little of the area was actually navigable.  The memories (and these are memories) are those of children, with the focus on the games and smoking of the adults, make-believe dragons and the sort.  The deeply sad emotional threads in the story are undercurrents, and are often portrayed simply -- such as the time when a rattling chandalier is bordered by small images of a frightened older woman praying with her rosary beads.  In another scene, several pages are devoted to waiting -- with little happening other than increased puffs of smoke and the clicking of tiles as one person plays a Scrabble-like game.  It is a book that is simplicity, but due to the excellent art and story-telling, one that is rich in culture and history.  It is no small coincidence that the book is created with thick, high-quality paper, making it weigh much more than most books its size ... as if to say that it might be small, but there is much meat here to absorb.  Another short read that will enlarge your understanding of the world, a big thumbs up.