An imperative
I hope that as many booksellers as possible will copy the lead of the one shown below and do all they can to promote this book. Similarly teachers, parents, bloggers and any others in a position to do so. Why? Because it is simply one of the most brave, committed, communicative and vitally important children's books to have been published in a very long time.
Graphic is good
For starters, it is great that another huge name children's author has collaborated with an established writer of, and an illustrator of, graphic novels to produce a high profile new work in this format*. Not long ago the same happened when Philip Pullman authored his excellent The Adventures of John Blake**. Hopefully these books will move us towards a situation where the graphic novel is given the status it deserves in the world of children's fiction. That is, as a valid format in its own right, and not as an inferior sub-genre, looked down upon by many parents and teachers and offered, if at all, only to young readers who are perceived as unwilling or unable to cope with a 'proper book'. Whilst different from prose fiction, and requiring a different reading style, involvement with a graphic novel requires highly acute visual literacy alongside verbal literacy, and offers a whole reading experience which can be just as rich and rewarding as prose fiction. It should be a valued part of every child's reading repertoire.
How can human beings be illegal?
However it is not the format alone, not even the format itself, which makes Illegal such a vitally important publication. It is its content and message.
Here is the story of a young boy, Ebo, and his traumatic journey from East Africa to Europe. He stands representative for all those refugees/economic migrants (call them what you will) who make such journeys in search of a better life for themselves and their families. He, like most of them, comes from extreme poverty, the extent of which many of us have no direct experience. Like them, too, his journey is horrendous, the depredations he suffers unspeakable, the perils quite literally deadly. The book skilfully alternates its narration between his Mediterranean crossing from North Africa to Sicily and the first part of his journey, from East Africa, across the Sahara and to the coast. Each leg of the journey is an almost equal nightmare of deprivation and danger, subject to squalid conditions and appalling exploitation at the hands of traffickers.
It is a disturbing, distressing story. It has to be, because that is what it is. However, it is also told with great sensitivity. Ebo and those sharing his plight are characters with whom many children will be able to identify. They will to some degree share his longings, his sufferings and his dreams. Amidst the trauma, and despite the distance of events and places from the experience of most readers, the authors skilfully build in many points of contact and empathy. Most will, for, example, identify with the devotion of Ebo's brother, Kwame, to Chelsea Football Club (even if they are not Chelsea fans themselves), as well as Ebo's own devotion to his 'big brother'. Like many other aspects of this story it ignites a familiar, common humanity that they will know well.
The power of pictures
Having mentioned separately the format and content of this book, it needs to be said, that one of its greatest triumphs is the way that the latter benefits from the former. This presentation allows its young readers into the situation, and its emotions, in a very direct way. The pictures show far more than the words. Their details and their colourings, their atmosphere and their inbuilt expressiveness provide vivid and telling ways into awareness, understanding and empathy. Like other good graphic novels, there is amazing effectiveness too in the layout and 'pacing' of the pictures. These subtly but very powerfully convey emotion - terror, awe, desperation, longing - often moving us in ways which can be as deep as the most skilfully constructed words.
The power of children
And this is a story which children need to know and to understand. They need to be shocked and appalled by it. And they will be. To understand the experience of one individual is to the understand better the experience of the many. To vicariously share Ebo's journey is the better to share humanity. I trust them to care. And, through that care they may come to play a part in reducing the appalling amount of mistrust, self-centredness and downright prejudice currently so rife in our societies.
It is also the case that, whilst many of the truly terrible situations explored in this book are now well known to the political world, the only attempted solutions currently in place are short-term ones, even if well-intentioned and assuredly better than nothing. Few however are finding real answers. Perhaps our children might, now and into the future. Their voices can be remarkably powerful and persuasive. Our world needs them at least to try to move us all forward. This book could potentially do so much. We must get it to as many children as possible.
Hope
The end of the Illegal story does convey much warmth and some hope for the future. For Ebo it is a story of the triumph of the human spirit; but for the rest of us it is a warning of what happens when we collectively abandon humanity. The graphic placement of the tale's final images against the mesh fence of a 'reception centre' is a harsh reminder that life on arrival in Europe is, to our shame, still not a bed of roses for Ebo and those in his position. But at least there are holes in the caging. Perhaps there will be a way out. That hope may well lie with our children. If this book can be put into the hands of enough of them it will help enormously in tuning them into the issues, the emotional ones more than the intellectual, the human more than the political. I trust them to understand that 'no human being is illegal'*** At least not in any place where law accords with natural justice.
The cover image has been cleverly selected to include a speech bubble stating, 'You know as well as I do that he shouldn't be here ' The 'here' shown is an overcrowded, inadequate boat in the middle of the ocean. It does not refer to our doorstep. Children will indeed know that. They will understand the difference.
Notes:
*There are excellent graphic novel versions of some of the Artemis Fowl titles, but they are essentially spin-offs from the prose versions, whereas Illegal is a major publication in its own right.
**See my post from June '17
***Quote from Nobel Laureate, Elie Wiesel, used as a preface to Illegal.
