Well, that was just wonderful-a memoir of growing up in Poland in the 80’s which portrays the struggle against communism through a child’s eyes. With this as the backdrop, her stories provide an engrossing view of what childhood in a different country looks like. I thoroughly enjoyed it. ( )

https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2851532.html

An autobiographical narrative about a young girl growing up in the last decade of Communist Poland - very vivid on the intersection of politics, religion, family, friends and school, and perhaps an honest preservation of a world that has now disappeared, changed mainly (but not entirely) for the better. ( )

In my quest to explore graphic novels, I came across this beauty. I loved the cover, a bitter child clutching her stuffed rabbit in full color while a group of soldiers cluster in the gray behind. I expected a book full of such contradiction, a book that would tug at my heart. Despite the implications of the cover, Marzi isn't that kind of book. It's tiny slivers in the life of one little girl who just happens to live in Poland during the fall of Soviet communism.

This is my first experience with a graphic novel illustrated by someone other than the author and I didn't like that. The illustrations and text felt disconnected at times. The pacing was off. Given the serial nature of the book, each vignette needed to occupy a full page or set of full pages and, as such, some were rushed while others lingered. I liked Marzi. Her perspective was astute and in line with how children thin. Some of her stories were very interesting, but this “novel” felt so much like a comic strip that I was overwhelmed by the presentation.

This is the kind of graphic novel that is probably best read in short segments. Although the illustrations are attractive and the stories interesting and multifaceted, its slice-of-life presentation bears more in common with a newspaper comic than with what I have come to recognize as a graphic novel. ( )

I am not sure why people compare this book to Persepolis. They are two very different books, and even the premise is really not similar. Marzi is about a child, and even at the end she is barely starting to be a young teenager. Persepolis is about a young girl who grows up, lives as a teenager, and leaves and comes back after living abroad as a young adult to Iran. Perhaps it is the childhood spent under oppressive regime thing that got people to compare these two books, or that they are both memoirs, or that someone somewhere marketed Marzi as such. But no, they are very different. Marzena Sowa makes a conscious effort to see things and show things from the point of view of little Marzi, who plays pranks in the apartment building she lives in, makes gum from window sealant, hates being forced to eat by her mother, covets her rich friend's American toys, wants to have a telephone even though there is nobody to call... Marzi has some very universal kid experiences and worries. Sure she lives in Poland behind the iron curtain, and everything in her life is affected by this, but the book is about being a child, being an only child, making friends, and slowly growing up.

If I were to compare this book with something, I would compare it with Mafalda. Though different in format (Mafalda is a short, usually 3 panel newspaper comic strip), the lives of children, the way they see adult life are interestingly similar. Of course, Mafalda is a running commentary on politics, while Marzi is much more innocent and naive, like a "normal" kid.

The illustrations are excellent and enhanced by the coloring scheme that uses strong pastels over grays. Some panels are too word-heavy and could have been split in two to thin out the words. The action in each panel not just depicted what the text was describing, but enhanced it by adding to it, or showing something that happened as a result of what was being described, which gives the pictorial story a dynamic feel.

The stories are well balanced and diverse. Some deal with living under the Soviet rule, some about being kids and getting in trouble, some with visits to the country side, some with extended family, some with friends and school.

Recommended for those who like memoirs and chewing gum. ( )

The death throes of Communism in Poland, as told from the point of view of a little girl. Marzi writes a great deal about childhood things, like playing with her friends who live in her apartment building, and her pet guinea pig, but she's also an astute observer of the crumbling world around her. She often joins one parent or the other to wait in line to buy something -- anything, it doesn't matter -- and sometimes she waits by herself. But like as not, by the time they get to the front, the whatever-it-was is all gone.

Eventually, Marzi's father joins the many people actively resisting Communism. She doesn't know that much about it; all the adults will tell her nothing, and she just wants her dad to come home. But you can read between the lines.

This is an excellent graphic novel/memoir which adults would also like. I'd like to read more of Marzi's story and how she wound up in France. ( )