![](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-gmFTxTbCQ7M/T_IWN7JwilI/AAAAAAAAAxM/3ByXIK4r2Ek/s200/Maus.jpg)
Author and Illustrator: Art Spiegelman
Publisher: Pantheon Books
Publication Date: 1991 & 1993
Genre/Format: Biography/Graphic Novel
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This second volume is subtitled And Here My Troubles Began. Genuinely tragic and comic by turns, it attains a complexity of theme and a precision of thought new to comics and rare in any medium.
What I Think: Maus shows the brilliance that can be within a graphic novel. This Pulitzer Prize-winning piece of literature not only is a great example of a graphic novel, but of writing in general. Art Spiegelman's story is multi-dimensional littered with symbolism, irony, and history.
One thing I found particularly intriguing about Maus is the way that Spiegelman made the setting a character within itself. The background was sometimes drawn more detailed than the characters leaving the characters to be generic looking and the background unique and with its own character.
I think this book would be a fascinating book to use in the classroom- history and reading/language arts. It would be a phenomenal book to teach simultaneously in the two classrooms.
Read Together: Grades 8 and up (though parts could be used in all grades, only certain parts are too mature for younger grades)
Read Alone: Grades 10 and up
Read With: Boy at War by Harry Mazer, Requiem: Poems of the Terezin Ghetto by Paul B. Janeczko, Berlin Boxing Club by Robert Sharenow, Once by Morris Gleitzman, Terezin: Voices from the Holocaust by Ruth Thomson, Parallel Journeys by Eleanor Ayer and Alfons Heck, The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
Snatch of Text:
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9QKRfJXwil_QnHUkUZhrUkBdnCcYpIBrioZAStyFvxC_UGMnU3HtAn0YFHB5SONm6yLZ3I3ctRtnzBjd8o8vAZbiOTtuUYP8IY3xSbx0v0Z6N3vgQ7CWUQkAr-43I43GHnWxE3mWwd2v2/s320/Art+Spiegelman+Maus.jpg)
Mentor Text for: Symbolism, Metaphor, Interview, Flashbacks, Point of a View, Irony
Writing Prompts: Art Spiegelman interviews his father Vladek to get the story for Maus, after interviewing one of your parents, create a biography of your parent as either a comic strip or narrative.
Topics Covered: Cross-curricular- World War II, Holocaust, Concentration Camps, Nazis, Racism; Values, Morals, Survival, Self-Worth
I *heart* Maus I:
I *heart* Maus II:
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