Song of a Blackbird

A knockout story that switches back and forth between two times: In Amsterdam in 2011, Annick is searching for family members who might be bone marrow transplant candidates for her beloved Oma who raised her. Oma explains that she was adopted during the war; a Christian family took her in and raised her as their own. So Annick goes looking for clues to Oma's original family, and she finds a full sibling, who's living in San Francisco. Oma's treasured set of prints, signed Emma Bergsma, helps pave the way; Emma was part of the Dutch resistance in the 1940s, helping Jewish children find Christian families to take them in, printing ration coupons, and even assisting with a bank heist to fund Resistance efforts. A third character, an show more unusual narrator, is the titular blackbird, who swoops through the story with white text in black text boxes.

SONG OF A BLACKBIRD brings the Dutch Resistance and the long effects of Nazi occupation to life with heartbreaking immediacy.

Extensive back matter includes photographs and more information about the locations in the book and the real-life people who inspired the fictional characters; maps of past and present Amsterdam are on the front and back endpapers.

Quotes

"It's tough to balance sometimes. Care enough to keep taking risks. But not so much that it destroys you." (95)

[Painting on a wall: the word REVOLUTION with LOVE written backward inside it and a heart around it](137)

"People tend to choose the less painful path over the right one." (161)

History isn't a set of events confined to the past. It's a current that pulses through flesh and bones, and it's passed on through generations. (204) show less

Absolutely heartbreaking and inspiring this graphic novel is a powerful reminder of the cost (and rewards) of resistance as told by two narratives on in 1943 and one in 2011. In 1943 Emma Bergsma is seeing firsthand the horrors of the Nazi occupation in Amsterdam. When she sees Jewish families being forcibly loaded onto trains she decides to join the Dutch resistance. In 2011, Annick has discovered that her grandmother needs a bone marrow match to live and her siblings aren't a match. It turns out they aren't blood related to her at all. Annick is determined to find her Oma's real family to see if any of them are a match. All she has to go on are a couple of art prints and some of he oma's shaky memories of the war. Absolutely stunning show more storytelling, the graphic novel format really helped bring the story to life and the afterward with the real photographs and history is captivating! show less

Historical fiction about the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands and the efforts of the Dutch resistance to save Jewish children from the Holocaust.

The story is mostly set in Amsterdam, but split between two different time periods. In 2011, Annick Vermeulen's grandmother has leukemia, and so she is trying to track down family members who went missing during World War II in hopes of finding a possible bone marrow donor. In 1943, Emma Bergsma volunteers to help the resistance movement by escorting Jewish children smuggled out of Nazi custody to foster families and by helping rogue printers forge ration tickets to feed the children and members of the resistance.

The story is a bit too long and convoluted, dropping in bank embezzlement and show more street art (a/k/a vandalism) plots along with other asides, and it gets a little boring waiting for the characters in modern times to discover developments already revealed in the 1940s timeline.

I might have still given the story a thumbs up, but the purple prose of the ridiculous narrator -- a magical, immortal blackbird -- just killed it for me. It also didn't help that the attempt to integrate actual photographs into the art contrasted in a jarring manner with the creator's cartoonish style. At one point a cartoon head is drawn atop the body of a person in a photograph, and I was left just shaking my head at the silliness of it.

I probably enjoyed the end notes with their details about the actual history more than the rest of the book. show less

Reviewed for VPRC. Very good graphic novel telling 2 parallel stories. Annick goes on a quest back in time to see if she can find a suitable bone marrow donor for her sick grandmother after it comes to light that her Oma is not related to her 2 older siblings. She only has some sketches to work from and her grandmother's memory of being bombed in the Netherlands while under Nazi occupation. On the flip side, the reader is then thrown into Emma's story - a young student who is faced with choices she must make to save a tiny jewish girl and her brother from being hauled off to the concentration camps, and how she becomes involved in one of the largest bank robberies in history.
Great drawings, easy to read story. For fans of Book Thief, show more The Girl in the Blue Coat and Anne Frank. Based on a true story. show less