Adult/Young Adult Graphic Novel
F/A Pyle, Kevin C.
Take What You Can Carry. Henry
Holt, 2012. 176p. 978-0-8050-8286-9. 12.99.
This graphic novel is composed of two stories told in
alternating chapters that eventually connect. The first story is completely
wordless and sepia toned. It is set in California during the Japanese
internment in the 1940s and follows a family, as they are torn apart and
relocated twice. The teenage son feels particularly lost during the turmoil.
The second story is blue colored and set outside of Chicago in 1978. It follows
a teenage boy who is new in town and out of boredom steals from a convenience
store. He is caught and must work at the store to repay what he has stolen.
Here we discover that the owner of the store is none other than the teenage son
from the alternate story. The artwork is good (although several characters look
very alike and are hard to differentiate) and the wordless Japanese internment
story is powerful, but the relationship between the storeowner and the teenage
boy feels contrived. Although they may have some similarities, they have
nothing in common. Loren Spector, LAPL, Felipe de Neve