REVIEW: Red: A Haida Manga

[Rebeka Mirza]

The graphic novel I read was “Red: A Haida Manga” by Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas. A young boy named Red lives on an island in a village called Kiokaathli. He lives with his sister, who he is pretty much raising. While Red and his sister, Jaada are having fun one day, outsiders come to the other side of the island. These raiders come to attack Red and Jaada. Fortunately, Red gets away but his sister is abducted. Red is so hurt by his loss since his sister means everything to him, “I lost the world” (34). A few years pass, and Red becomes the leader of his village. Red finds a man who is talented at making weapons and utilizes him for his abilities. One day, someone comes to Red to tell him that his sister has been spotted on a different island. Red and his fellow companions visit the village of Laanas to bring his sister back where she belongs. Red finds his sister asleep, but has to run away because people want to attack him because they don’t know him. Jaada wants to find her brother, and a man from Laanas tells her that he will help her find her brother. This man is on a boat with another man, while Red is on another boat with other people. Assuming the boat is owned by the raiders, Red attacks the man in there. After Red finds Jaada, she tells him that he has killed her husband, who she has a child with. Her hsuband’s head is given to the village, who pay their respects. Soon after, the leader of Laanas tells Red a stop needs to be put to the fighting. He rewards Red with a bow, which will help protect Red from further attacks. Red takes the leader’s words to heart, “Fine, I shall end this” (102). Red shoots his bow and kills himself. Jaada is the last comic seen with her and her son in a boat, going home to her old village of Kiokaathli.

This graphic novel is written from a young adult named Red, who is about 12 years old at the beginning of the story. After he becomes a leader he is about 20 years of age. Although this is not stated in the book, it can be assumed. Furthermore, Red’s emotions and experiences are that of a young adult. Red’s parents are removed from the novel completely. Red and his sister, Jaada, are orphans. This leaves Red to make his own choices and act as a mature adult. He is in charge of raising his little sister. Red has complete control over his actions, and he is responsible for each single one. He has no parent telling him what to do or giving him advice. He is basically on his own, especially when his sister is removed from his life. The graphic novel is very fast paced; it did not take very long to read it. The pictures are very colorful, and the artist uses a Picasso-like take on his work. There are more pictures than words in the whole novel, as well. Because of the Picasso-like look, sometimes it is difficult to determine what is happening in the pictures. For this reason, it is necessary for the graphic novel to contain more words. But either way, one can just read and scan through the pictures to determine what is going on. There is not a clear idea about the ethnic group used in this book, but the people seem uncivilized. Although one race might be used in the book, there are two very different locations depicted in the story. Kiokaathli is a nice, peaceful town, whereas Laanas seems like the bad part of town. The town of Laanas seemed like the ghetto to me, compared to the other town where people were not interested in fighting. This book was optimistic because Red got his sister back, and he kept his hope alive for many years. This book deals with emotions that are important to young adults, such as hope, revenge, anger, sadness, and failure. Red’s hope is depicted in his struggle to win his sister back. He wants to take revenge on the people who abducted her, since they took his whole life away from him. For this reason, he is angry at these people. At the end of the book, Red is sad about how far the fighting went and ends his own life because he feels like a failure.

I found a link which seems to be the author’s website. A good amount of his artwork is shown on this website, as well as his process of creating this book. http://www.rockingraven.com/index.html

This book is classroom appropriate and could be used in the middle school grades. It deals with a very stressful situation that Red has to go through, that many teenagers do not. Middle school students would enjoy reading this book since it is an easy read, and has many captivating pictures. The students could be asked to make predictions about what is going to happen in the book at certain points, and also be asked what they would do if they were in the same situation. Since the book also focuses on two very different villages, students could tie that into real life and find two places that are close, yet very different from one another. I think this book possesses many characteristics of a YA novel, and addresses many emotions that young adults go through. For this reason, middle school students would be able to relate to Red in certain ways.