“He didn’t question what he was being told…This was the time of brainwashing”

There may have been a time when Peter Sis did not question what he was being told, but The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain stands as a testament to the fact that today Peter Sis is an independent thinker (as well as a talented artist). By sharing his story, Sis gives us a textual and pictorial front seat view into communism in Czechoslovakia from the beginning of the Cold War to its end.

Throughout The Wall, Sis is shown trying to make sense out of the life and the culture that lies before him. He knows he wants to be an artist, but self-expression and personal identity are frowned upon in favor of complete conformity and communal identity. He struggles with what he is being taught versus what he feels in his heart, “He stopped drawing and was left with only his dreams. But he had to draw. Sharing the dreams gave him hope.”

Sis makes the atmosphere of fear, suspicion, and lies relevant to children by telling about the Czech government’s policy that encouraged young children to inform on family and friends. Limited freedoms and limited choice is reflected in Sis’ stark text and illustrations. His black and white pen and ink illustrations fill most each page; when color is used, it is largely communist red. With 56 pages (more than the traditional 32 pages found in most picture books) and cartoon like panels, The Wall amalgamates the best of the picture book and graphic novel formats.

While it contains only a mere five paragraphs, Sis’ introduction provides a lucid synopses of the Cold war and sets the stage for his memoir. He writes, “The Soviet Union and the Western nations managed their territories in different ways. The Western Bloc countries were all independent democracies, while the Eastern Bloc was tightly controlled by the Soviet Union.” He notes that Europe was divided “symbolically, ideologically, and physically…I was born at the beginning of it all, on the Red side–the Communist side–of the Iron Curtain.” The story then opens with the Soviet’s closing of the Czech borders in 1948; it ends with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and Sis’ explanation of how difficult it is to put into words the Cold War. Sis has overcome this difficulty by putting his story and the story of these years in world history it into words and pictures while also incorporating other elements such as a historical timeline and excerpts from his journals.

Sis’ book deals with a complex and politically-charged time in world history. On the one hand, adults may need to help younger readers navigate the timeline and make it relevant to life today; on the other hand, the complexity encourages discourse and questioning of different value systems and ways of being. The Wall takes readers outside personal circumstances into recognition that other individuals and people’s of the world have hopes, dreams, and realities as real as their own. The Wall also enhances appreciation of freedom–freedom to draw, freedom to be, freedom to choose.

Sis has won awards for other works (e.g., Starry Messenger as winner of the 1997 Caldecott Honor). The Wall has earned him a couple of additional distinctions, recently winning the Robert F. Sibert Medal and a Caldecott Honor. So my final take on The Wall: Growing up Behind the Iron Curtain:

Reading this book
COMPULSORY
Failing to read this book
PROHIBITED

(Not that I’m advocating conformity or coercion…but, I’m SUGGESTING this will be popular among students of history and with those who enjoy non-traditional book formats. It will also come in handy for teachers and students facing Cold War era curricula.) ( )

I love this book. I love Peter Sis. I love Russia. Seriously, Sis might as well have just written this book for me-I have already bought enough copies to make sure he's getting a royalty check for life!
The Wall is Sis' autobiography of growing up in communist Czechoslovakia. Using black and white pen and ink drawings, with small red images in each pane for emotional and historical significance, Sis tells the story of being a talented artist who wasn't allowed to draw what he wanted due to Soviet oppresion. He intersperses pages, drawings, and photos from his own early life to illustrate this harsh childhood, and the book is interacted with on many levels by the reader. Unique to the world of children's pictures books with it's storyline of communist satellite countries, Sis' book strikes an empathetic cord with kids who can't believe they wouldn't be able to draw as small children. The Wall is perfection in story, organization, artistry, and content-my classroom will be filled with copies of it for years to come. ( )

In the simplicity of his drawings, Peter Sis shows the reader images of what living under a totalitarian regime was like. High school students might find compelling the idea of keeping one's creative passion as a sustaining force in the midst of life's hardships and limitations. ( )

In words and drawings Sís reminisces about his childhood and youth in communist controlled Czechoslovakia. “As long as he could remember, he had loved to draw.” As an infant and child at home in Prague he was free to draw whatever he wanted, but when he went to school he was told what to draw and what to think. “Looking back, I can see how easy it is to brainwash a child. We were like sheep … until music from the free world—rock ‘n’ roll and the Beatles—made a crack in the wall.” As a youth during the Prague Spring he became part of a rock group and a radio disc jockey until the Russian tanks moved in and the government began to watch and question everybody. In Los Angeles in 1984 he had a chance to defect and he took it. “Now when my American family goes to visit my Czech family in the colorful city of Prague, it is hard to convince them it was ever a dark place full of fear, suspicion, and lies…” ( )

I'm a bit of a Russaphile. A child of the 70's and 80's the Iron Curtain was intriguing to me. I've seen this book before and was happy to finally have a reason to read it. I was pretty disappointed in it. The story lacks a compelling narrative. The artwork was simultaneously bland and busy. ( )