Song of a Blackbird

Starred review from November 1, 2024

Gr 10 Up-Van Lieshout's graphic novel debut opens with a blackbird who acts as a third-person omniscient narrator, calling out to those who are suffering to hear its sympathetic song. "Retelling. Remembering. This is how we keep stories and memories alive. This is how we keep people alive." Readers get two alternating yet intertwined storylines: Annick in Amsterdam, 2011, and Emma in Amsterdam, 1943. Annick is a young girl searching for answers to her ailing grandmother's past, while Emma, a student, is searching for small gleams of light, which she finds in helping those in need through an era of darkness. The illustrations and coloring are sharply contrasted, with slight hues of color to differentiate the point in time readers are being immersed in. These striking illustrations are blended seamlessly with actual photographs that ignite emotions for those following both protagonists on their riveting journeys. Through different characters, the horrific intent of Hitler and the Nazis is made transparent, and the text on how Hitler came to power is comprehensible for developing minds, allowing for critical thinking and discourse about historical events. The story builds a powerful connection from the near present to the past, as readers learn about these tragic moments in history. Though the story is fiction, photographs and historical background at the end of the book reveal the harsh realities of world history. VERDICT Though not for the faint of heart, this touching, gripping, and heartbreaking historical graphic novel doesn't shy away from the dark sides of the true events it's based on, while still offering a ray of hope for the genuine good out there.-Cat Miserendino

Copyright 2024 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from November 15, 2024
A Dutch girl must unravel a complicated family history to save her beloved grandmother. In Dutch author and illustrator van Lieshout's debut graphic novel, Oma, Annick's grandmother, has leukemia, and doctors have said that her best chance of survival is a bone marrow transplant. Family members usually offer the likeliest match, but the search for a donor leads Oma to learn that she's not biologically related to her siblings. Hoping to discover the identities of Oma's biological parents--and a viable donor--Annick studies the only surviving clues from Oma's World War II childhood: a set of prints of Amsterdam buildings. Along her life-changing journey, Annick meets Koenji, a handsome street artist and poet whose mother is from Japan, and the pair piece together the significance of the buildings in the prints, following a trail that leads them through Amsterdam and on to the U.S. Told from the perspective of an omniscient blackbird through dual timelines that shift between 2011 and the mid-1940s, this skillfully researched tale is historically and emotionally resonant, reinforcing the importance of art as "a radical act of freedom and resistance." Van Lieshout juxtaposes her clean, striking two-toned illustrations against stark black-and-white photographs, adding dramatic splashes of color. The backmatter cites the real people and places that served as inspiration. Accessible, haunting, and immaculately researched, this work will claim its place beside graphic novel classics such as Art Spiegelman'sMaus and Marjane Satrapi'sPersepolis. Powerful, moving, and utterly unforgettable. (photo credits, bibliography)(Graphic fiction. 12-adult)

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Starred review from January 1, 2025
Grades 8-12 *Starred Review* The power of art to inspire hope and resistance to tyranny is embodied in the titular blackbird, who swoops through the journeys of two brave girls living in two separate time periods. In 2011 Amsterdam, Annick's oma is in desperate need of a bone marrow transplant, but the search for a donor reveals that Oma's biological parents are not who she thought they were. This launches Annick on a quest to find answers that will save her beloved grandmother, a quest which turns the narrative back to 1943 Amsterdam, in which young artist Emma seeks to hide two Jewish children from Nazi occupation and is led into the company of printers who resist fascism through their skill and art. Both threads of the intertwining tale prove deeply compelling for their suspense as well as their overarching message, and while the story meaningfully evokes a specific historical situation, it could easily serve as a springboard for conversations around other stories of oppression, both contemporary and historical. Along with the thematic content, the simplified forms and strategic use of color can't help but recall Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis, though the illustrations here are often combined with photographs of actual locations, grounding the stylized art in unavoidable reality. Indeed, the story is loosely based on actual, well-researched situations, a fact brought home by the generous back matter.

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March 1, 2025
This deeply personal and poetic graphic novel illustrates the heroic actions of everyday Dutch people as they resisted the Nazi regime, as well as the lingering trauma inherited by subsequent generations. An omniscient blackbird with the ability to "sail between time and place" guides readers, and at times the characters, through the events of two seemingly disparate timelines. In 1943, headstrong Dutch university student Emma becomes involved in the covert relocation of Jewish children. When a group of defiant artists recruits Emma to participate in the forging and transportation of official documents, the stakes escalate with deadly consequences. In 2011, Annick, a young woman living in Amsterdam, sets out on an unexpected journey through her family's complicated WWII history, uncovering her ill grandmother's long-lost brother (and potential bone marrow donor). Art (embodied by the blackbird) as an act of defiance and source of inspiration is central to the story, with a series of handmade prints serving as a catalyst for revealing hard truths, merging past with present. The present-tense prose and print-block style digital illustrations are equally expressive, often hinting at meaning through an evocative phrase or dramatic shift in page layout. Van Lieshout seamlessly integrates black-and-white photographs, many from the actual resistance group Underground Camera, into panels and layouts. Extensive back matter highlights the real-life individuals and events that inspired and informed the narrative. Patrick Gall

(Copyright 2025 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)