Maus a Survivor's Tale Part 1 My Father Bleeds History

Maus is a very quick and fascinating read especially because the whole book is one long comic! It is the story of Vladek Spiegelman, a Jewish survivor of Hitler's Europe and his son, a cartoonist who tries to come to term with his father, his father's terrifying story and History itself. The Nazis are cats the Polish are pigs and the Jews are mice giving the previous thought well known events a whole new perspective. The great drawings flashing between present day New York to 1940's Poland. This amazing tale of fear, suspicion, betrayal and impossible escapes had me on the edge on my seat expecting the end for Vladek and his family at any moment. I have read other survivor stories but this is by far the most raw and profound. I am getting part 2 soon, and will have to be careful to put it down enough to do my homework. This book makes me very appreciative of all the food I eat and the warmth of my house. Vladek and his wife Anja ate bread once a day while they were hiding in a barn. Vladek told Anja to chew pieces of wood to make her less hungry. In a Polish POW camp Vladek hundled in tents and thin blankets to keep from getting frost bite. He made a chess board out of bread crums and woodchips to help pass the time. a Pultzer prize winner that Newsweek said "Maus compels us to bear witness in a different way: the very artificiality of its surface makes it possible to imagine the reality beneath"