Gandhi: His Life, His Struggles, His Words

Lambilly-Bresson, E. (2010). Gandhi: His life, his struggles, his words. New York, NY: Enchanted Lion Books. ISBN: 1-59270-094-2

Author: Élisabeth de Lambilly
Website: No author website
Illustrator: Severine Cordier
Website: http://zoezoe.ultra-book.com/

Media Used: Mixed media including but not limited to: black & white photographs, pencil, pen, ink and brush, full color comic illustrations, and computer graphics.

Summary: Gandhi, trained as a lawyer, stood up against human suffering, intolerance, and injustice through non-violent methods. He believed every human being had the right to dignity and freedom and lead the people of India in their fight for independence.

Personal Thoughts: This book uses a mixture of photographs, drawings, and comic panels to tell Gandhi's life story.  The comic panels, 11 pages long, open the book and describe Gandhi's arrival in South Africa and his being removed from a train because of his race.  The comics then briefly show Gandhi's development as he starts to speak out against different injustices; his speaking up at the Indian Congress against British taxes; the British attempt to keep Gandhi from arriving by ship in South Africa after visiting India; an attack on him by protesters; the building of his first ashram; his vow of non-violent methods; and his prison protest fast against the requirement that Indians carry identity cards or face imprisonment.  The rest of the book is mostly text that go more in detail about some of the different ways that Gandhi made a difference.  Interwoven into the text are illustrations and photographs depicting different events.  I found this book in the children's graphic novel section of my local library.  The graphic novel portion of this book is smalled compared to the non-fiction information included, but the comic does a wonderful job of encouraging the reader to absorb that non-fiction information.  This format works well, since the goal of most of the curricular connected graphic novels that I've read seek to introduce the reader to a topic and hopefully encourage them to read more detail about it in another book. 

Non-fiction in Graphic Novel Format