31. The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain

I'm starting to realize how drawn I am to biographies and historical fiction. And they all seem to be kind of sad stories. Sorry, guys. Nevertheless, here comes a story about...the Iron Curtain! The Wall is a 2007 Caldecott Honor book written by Peter Sís. It is an account of his childhood in communist Czechoslovakia.  


Sís' cover art is immediately compelling-- this baby full of joy and life is boxed into a wall that contains and restricts him. The string on the side makes it look like this is the photo album of his life that we are about to witness. Once inside, the endpapers show us the big red mass that was communism. Zooming in, we get a glimpse of how young Sís was in the middle of all of it. Sís' use of red as a symbol for communism continues throughout. The vast majority of illustrations seem to be ink/pencil sketches in black and white representing the bleakness and conformity under communist rule, with the red as the imposition of communist propaganda. 

We do get small snatches of color as Sís grows up and loves to draw, even keeping it hidden when it is forbidden to represent anything other than communist symbols. This tension between a desire to have freedom and the oppressive communist regime finally explodes with a double page bleed in bright, vibrant surrealistic watercolor with yellows, greens, and blues symbolizing the opening of the Iron Curtain to influences of the Western world. Sís also includes some collages of important artifacts to him on the pages of his actual journal entries. Thus, this book is truly a blend of different media and artistic styles.

Sís' changing panels create a narrative quality that depict the entire story without the need for exposition. That is one level you can read the book, by 'telling' what is going on in the pictures and blending them into a narrative. His cartoon-like characters would engage even the youngest readers. Another level of the book is to look at the illustrations and read the text below. This text is an appropriate amount of information for a younger child or a first reading. The most complicated reading would be to also include all of the captions on the sides of the illustrations. Those blurbs incorporate a lot of vocabulary as well as specific information about communism and the politics of the time. So it's kind of like a choose your own adventure...you choose your own way of experiencing the book.


This book was the first time I felt that I understood a little bit of what it might have been to live in those times. History textbooks don't do these sorts of events justice-- they tell you facts about what happened, but not what it was like to actually experience them. With this book, you get a first-hand look at one boy's struggle to maintain individuality in the midst of conformity. A great way to incorporate concepts of government and politics from a very early age to university students, this books runs the gamut on possible applications.